


Tenebris

by vienn_peridot



Series: Syngnath Chronicles [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Syngnath, Alien Biology, Alien Birth, Alien Sex, Biological Experimentation, Blood and Gore, Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Eye Gouging, Forced Dependence, Forced Pregnancy, Forced to Watch, Immobility, Incubator!Shockwave, Laming, Left for Dead, Major Character Death(s), Major Character Injury, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mech Preg, Non-Consensual Bondage, Nonconsensual Oviposition, Other, Ovaria!Drift, Oviposition, Parasitic Infestation, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con - Freeform, Robogore, Torture, Unethical Experimentation, blinding, this doesn't end well, traumatic insemination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:12:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienn_peridot/pseuds/vienn_peridot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drift and Wing are captured during a simple repair mission.<br/>The young Ovaria and his Cybertronian friend are plunged into the depths of a hell the likes of which they never imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Capture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OniGil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OniGil/gifts).



> This is a Robogore meme fill thingie for Onigil.  
> I LOVE YOU THEREFORE I TORTURE YOUR OTP.
> 
> The Rape/Non-Con warning is because I consider taking sexual advantage of someone during their heat cycle to be exactly the same as taking sexual advantage of someone when they're drunk and would otherwise say no. I find nothing 'dubious' about the inability to consent in this situation.  
> Now I have defined my terms, let us continue to the House of Horrors that is Tenebris.
> 
> (If there are other things you wish me to add to the tags, let me know. I know I haven't caught everything)

# Chapter One: Capture

 

The Knight and his apprentice left New Crystal City via one of the many hidden tunnels that lead from the safety of the underground settlement up to the surface of the planet. Both were happy for the chance to stretch their legs, but no matter how eager they were it was still wise to be cautious.

From long habit the pair paused just inside the tunnel mouth, inspecting the lay of the land before leaving the safety of the shadows. Drift growled and tugged at his cowl, the blasted thing refused to sit properly and chafed the delicate sensors of his audial flares. He _still_ wasn’t used to the muffling effect of the fabric, either. It made him feel half-blind and frayed his already short temper.

With that in mind, Wing hid his smile at the grounder’s grumbling by double-checking the landscape visible to them in the bright glare of the morning sun. When he decided that the coast was clear and that Drift wasn’t about to tear his hood off in frustration, the Knight signalled Drift with a tug on his sleeve and they set off out into the desert.

 

~V~V~V~V~

 

High above, somewhere in the stratosphere of Theophany, a heavily shielded and camouflaged runabout cruised in a search pattern. Within the cockpit of the craft a small Cybertronian studied a complicated display containing the readouts from multiple sensor feeds, seeking one specific signal in the chaos of multi-frequency noise radiating from the planet’s surface.

It was found faster than expected, and appeared to originate from the desert continent just east of the current flightpath. The pilot opened a secure communications frequency to a larger ship hiding near the moon.

“Target located.”

“Excellent. Estimated time of return?”

“Hmmm, give me three joors. I’ll let you know when I have it secured so you can prepare your little welcoming party.”

“Acknowledged.”

Grinning as the commlink closed, the hunter began to stalk in earnest.

 

~V~V~V~V~

 

“So why do we have to do this, anyway? Neither of us are solar power specialists.” Drift demanded, slogging along in Wing's wake.

Theophany's sun was sliding closer to zenith, bringing with it a dramatic rise in air temperature. The light (and heat) reflected back up off the sand, half-blinding Drift even with the new optic lenses the medics had given him.

“It's a simple repair that anyone with basic knowledge can carry out.” Wing replied serenely, seemingly unaffected by the furnace the desert had become.

“Yeah, but why _us?_ ” Drift wasn’t whining.

Ex-Decepticons and apprentice Knights didn’t _whine_.

“Dai Atlas is convinced that a little _sanctioned_ time outside will keep you from trying to sneak out for a while.” Wing teased with a laugh.

Drift barely heard him, all his attention caught up with a familiar noise coming from somewhere overhead. He shaded his optics, frantically scanning the searingly bright bowl of sky arching above them. Even with the stupid hood on his hearing was still better than Wing's and they both knew it. All those extra sensors had to be good for _something_ besides making the EM Fields of other mecha feel obnoxiously strong.

_No, no it_ can’t _be._

“Drift? What is it?” Wing’s voice was soft, easy to ignore if Drift wanted to.

“I think I hear something.” The grounder said vaguely before clarifying, “Something not good.”

“What kind of not good?”

“It sounds like a ship, one of our – _their_ \- medium-range hunter shuttles.”

“Are you sure?”

A shimmer in the air heralded the decloaking of said ship. The Decepticon insignia was writ large across its underbelly, was clearly visible to the Cybertronain optic even though the runabout was still several thousand feet up.

“Very sure.” Drift breathed, horror flooding his frame.

If there was only one thing Drift knew for sure in his messed-up functioning, it was that right now he definitely _didn’t_ want to board anything with that logo on it.

Especially not with Wing.

Battle systems surging online, Drift grabbed Wing’s hand and started towing him across the sand. They couldn’t transform in these stupid clothes but he still had to try to reach shelter, safety, _anything_. There was no way they could outrun the shuttle, but maybe with the clothes they looked enough like scared organics to be ignored in favour of more challenging prey.

With straining vents and Wing’s EM Field beating at his, Drift charged across the desert and _hoped_.

 

~V~V~V~V~V~V~

 

The target was _running_.

How cute!

Smiling with anticipation, the pilot put the runabout into a hover and readied the weapons systems.

All it would take is two clean shots, a little work and whisk the cargo back to the boss.

Then the _real_ fun would begin.

Taking careful aim, the pilot prepared to fire.

 

~V~V~V~V~V~V~

 

Drift knew they were fragged when he heard the shuttle’s engines go into an altitude-hold firing sequence. He pulled hard at Wing’s arm, trying to throw the jet to the ground and get his own frame in between the Knight and whoever was on that ship.

He shouldn’t have bothered.

The unexpected movement skewed their unknown pursuer’s aim; the high-powered stunner bolt intended to hit Wing in the torso struck him in the back of the helm instead as he stumbled and resisted Drift's pull.

The residual heat energy of the stunner bolt combined with Wing’s own sparking circuitry to set the jet's garments alight.

Drift had an entire klick to register Wing’s frame falling limply to the ground with his helm wreathed in flame before the stunner bolt with his own designation caught him squarely in the chest, sending him crashing into unconsciousness.


	2. Myein

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift awakens in one of the last places in the universe he wants to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Myein' is the codename for my TFOC Mystere. Time to meet the sadistic segue when she's not playing sane.

# CHAPTER 2: Myein

Drift come back online to one Pit of a processor-ache.

Something didn’t feel right.

He was upright and his hips felt too light, both scabbards and their contents gone.

No weapons.

That was _never_ good.

Even in New Crystal City he kept at least one of the blades with him at all times.

Old habits die hard, _especially_ the ones that kept you alive.

Frame still and optics offline, Drift searched his recent memory for an explanation for this. His memory cache was always slow to update him when he came back online and he fumed at the delay. The last things he had been aware of... What were they?

 - _Aboveground. Wing. Unfamiliar shuttle. Decepticon insignia. Grabbing Wing’s hand and running. Roar of spaceworthy engines. Hot, scorched air all around them. A shot, Wing falling with his helm on fire…_ ~

An unfamiliar EM field came into sensing range, forcing Drift to shift his focus back to the world outside his memories. That field radiated a kind of malicious joy that immediately put him on the defensive. His palms itched for the familiar weight of his guns so that he wouldn’t have to be within range of this mech’s EM Field. Even a few moments made him feel contaminated.

“Rise and shine, gentlemechs.” Someone trilled in the harmonics used for favoured guests. “It’s time to greet the day!”

Something sharp tapped smartly on the nasal ridge of Drift’s helm, digging a little notch into his armour. He snarled and jerked backwards, optics coming online with a start when the movement slammed the length of his spine against something hard.

_What the slag?!_

The world was a blur of grey with a large splash of reddish light across it. His optics were taking a while to adjust, probably an after-effect of whatever stunner they’d shot him with. There was nothing wrong with Drift’s sense of touch, however. His fabric disguise was gone along with his swords which made it a little easier to figure out how he’d been tied.

Drift was kneeling, back kept ramrod straight by what felt like some sort of pillar.  His arms were behind his back, forearms pressed together so he could touch his own elbow joints. It put an unnatural strain on his shoulders and kept him from reaching and picking any locks. There were short bars fastened to his ankles and forearms, forcing him to remain in a half-kneeling position that was putting a truly hellish amount of strain on the mechanisms of his legs.

About that time Drift started wishing he was still blissfully unconscious.

This position was already uncomfortable. In a joor or so this was really going to _hurt_.

Drift’s optics cleared, self-repair systems prioritising sight for survival and him back his short-range focus first. The grey-and-red blur he’d been staring at resolved into the faceplates of an unfamiliar Cybertronian with the small, pointed features of a femme frame.

_Red optics. The Decepticon from that ship?_

This femme’s faceplates were scant centimetres from his own, dark red optics studying him intently as one by one Drift’s systems staggered towards full awareness. Drift he bared his denta and growled at the red-opticed femme, earning a delighted grin and a condescending little pat on the cheek.

“Oh _good_. One of you is awake, at least.” The femme chirped, twisting away from Drift and moving out of his narrowed range of focus.  “Now if only we could get your friend to join us, then we could _all_ have some fun!”

_Wait,_ _one of_ us _?_

_Oh slag. Wing!_

Frantically clawing his way back to functionality, Drift almost sighed with relief as that abnormal field _finally_ moved out of sensing range. Attempts to use active scans to investigate the room they were in turned out to be pointless.

His proximity scanners had been disabled.

Right now that didn’t mean a great deal, since autorepair had just fully restored his vision.

What Drift saw was one of the least reassuring things in his universe.

A small, bare room. Unfurnished except for whatever post Drift was attached to and sturdy rings set high into the walls.  There was a drain in the floor, surrounded by the gruesome stains left by energon and other Cybertronian bodily fluids when they pooled for an extended period of time. Overhead lighting protected by unbreakable glasssteel panels in the ceiling.

No shadows to hide in.

He knew this kind of room.

It was a Decepticon torture cell.

On Turmoil’s ship they’d called it the ‘Receiving Room’ in open mockery of the elaborate multi-roomed housing units rich mecha inhabited while those like Drift had fought _and killed_ for a corner they could put their back to for a few hours of recharge.

So, the ‘Cons had finally caught up with him.

Now he had to figure out _who_ had them so he could work out their chances of escape.

This wasn’t Turmoil’s ship. He knew all the Rooms there well enough to recognise them from the pattern of stains on the floors.

So unless it was the Decepticon Justice Division they might have a chance.

Shunting aside thoughts of the DJD, Drift carefully turned his helm, searching for the strange femme.

Brightly-coloured plating twitched in his peripheral vision, betraying the femme’s location.  She was standing her back to him, head cocked contemplatively as she looked up at the white frame of a mech hanging from the wall. Drift reactivated old priority trees to allow himself to ignore the suspended mech long enough to examine his enemy for weaknesses.

Slim build typical of a femme, enamelled in colours his new optic lenses registered as almost painfully bright. Something about the sheen of her finish suggested it would look different under other lighting conditions. Wheel housing poking up above the layered skirting panels covering her aft indicated a ground-based altmode. Taken together with the thin-looking armour, Drift concluded that the femme was some sort of civilian entertainer.

He knew the type well from Rodion; he’d be able to disassemble her with no problem at all.

With the enemy assessed, Drift turned his attention to the mech hanging from the wall.

He already knew who he would see.

Wing stripped of his fabric disguise, upper limbs splayed wide where he hung suspended by his wrists from rings set high in the wall. The jet’s optics were offline, scorched helm hanging forward so his white cheekpieces scraped against the clavicular portions of his armour. There were a few fresh scrapes on his white chassis and some patches of scorched, bubbled enamel that looked as if they had been made by strips of burning fabric getting caught in the intakes of his nacelles.

Burning garments. Such a stupid, _senseless_ way to get hurt.

The Greatsword was gone, along with Wing’s own shortswords.

Brilliant, just what they didn’t need.

A warning growl started low in Drift’s engine and built until his entire frame vibrated as the femme extended a hand towards Wing's faceplates. Balancing impossibly on the long blocky toepieces of her pedes, the brightly-coloured civilian delicately stroked the Knight’s jawline with one taloned fingertip.

No energon was spilled, but Drift was sure it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

“Come on, I can hear you cycling up.” The femme’s glyphs were warm, filled with teasing harmonics that had Drift’s plating clamping down to protect his vitals. “You _wouldn’t_ want to miss the reunion party, would you?”

_Reunion party? Who the slag has us? This isn’t Turmoil’s ship!_

“Nnnnghzzt D-Drift?” Wing’s vocaliser crackled, his helm rising shakily to look straight past the femme as his optics searched the room.

Drift easily identified the instant Wing spotted him. Amber optics widened, going bright as ill-concealed horror shot across the jet’s faceplates. Even though the speedster had no idea what he looked like, Wing’s expression told him more than he needed to know.

“I’m sorry, Wing.”

It was all Drift could say.

He suspected that no matter who had them, he would be saying those three words hundreds more times before they managed to escape or their captors finally offlined them.

Wing’s mouthplates flattened and he turned his attention –finally- to the small femme in front of him. She waited patiently, observing the interplay between the two captive mechs in a way that sent ice through Drift’s lines. She smiled brightly, the expression baring fanged denta that glinted like a medic’s scalpel in the overhead lights.

“So, it’s time for the introductions?” The femme asked cheerfully, cocking her head up at the jet. “You’re Wing? I must say that is _quite_ fitting. It has some _lovely_ harmonics on the vocaliser. I don’t think I’ve heard that particular variation before.”

Three sharp fingers splayed over the jet’s chestplate, trailing down over the singed metal in a caress. Drift’s growl went up another notch, but from the familiar way Wing was twitching in his chains she wasn’t causing pain. When she came to the border between red and white armour, the femme playfully flicked the transformation seam before breaking contact and turning to skip across the Receiving Room on pedetip to stand before the kneeling Drift, fists resting against the sides of her pelvic armour.

“And _Deadlock!_ ” The femme scolded, “You’ve gone and changed your designation _again_ , you naughty boy!”

Drift glared up at the Decepticon femme, baring his fangs in a snarl. Before he could respond, she reached out swiftly and patted him on the cheek, clawed fingertips scraping the dermal metal without drawing energon.

“It’s alright. We _all_ do silly things sometimes.” The words were cooed at him as if Drift were a disobedient sparkling. “Lord Megatron will forgive you! _Now,_ I think I should introduce myself!””

The femme moved away from Drift, spinning on one elongated pedetip in the centre of the room before sinking into a fluid bow with the skirting panels spread out behind her.

“You won’t recognise my _actual_ designation, of course, but you may have heard me referred to as _Myein_.” The femme paused, field probing for a reaction. “I am _very_ pleased to meet the both of you, Wing and Deadlock.”

Drift met Wing’s baffled optics and found he couldn’t shrug to indicate that he had no idea who the crazy femme was. Instead he pulled a face, one he’d made many times in New Crystal City and knew that the Knight would understand perfectly.

The femme straightened from her bow, pouting and flattening her bright armour plating in disappointment at the looks of blank unrecognition both prisoners turned on her.

“Oh, so you _haven’t_ heard of me?” She sounded thoroughly let down, even going so far as to pout like a sparkling.

Then a change came over the femme’s posture that sent chills racing up Drift’s backstrut. Myein smiled widely at the pair of mechs, turning her head to grace them both with the sight of her pointed denta. There was something about the smile which made Drift want to put a fusion cannon through her spark chamber and fling the corpse into a supernova.

“Not to worry, dears.” Myein purred, walking to the door with an odd splay-footed gait. “We’ll all get to know each other _very_ well over the next vorn or so.”

Leaving the promise hanging in the air, she blew a kiss and exited as soon as the door opened wide enough for her narrow frame.

“I have no idea who she is, but this is bad.” Drift said, answering the obvious question before Wing could ask it. “I couldn’t see an insignia on her but she’s obviously with the Decepticons, this is one of their torture chambers. I’m sorry I got you dragged into this.”

“You haven’t _dragged_ me anywhere, Drift.” Wing said evenly, testing his bonds. “We were captured while going to fix the solar array. Now that I think about it; it may have been a setup. There have been more breakdowns than usual lately.”

“Bait to lure us out.” Drift snarled, jerking uselessly against his own bindings.

“Why, us though?” Wing asked evenly. “None of the other teams experienced any harassment, so what is it that made them take us?”

Cold fear settled in Drift’s tanks.

“I’ve left the Decepticons, Wing.” The grounder said softly. “They’re probably going to hand me over to the DJD.”

Neither mentioned the other possible reason for targeting them.


	3. A Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift is reunited with a benefactor from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, 'Myein' is the codename for my TFOC Mystere. She's the bitch I love to hate.

# Chapter 3: A Reunion

“I left the Decepticons, Wing.” Drift said quietly, his optics bright with suppressed fear. “They’re probably going to hand me over to the DJD.”

“You are mistaken.” A voice said evenly as the door to the torture chamber opened, revealing a large purple mech.

“I have other plans for you, Deadlock.”

Drift’s frame went rigid; it was obvious that he recognised the newcomer. Wing stayed as relaxed as he could in his chains, trying not to draw attention to himself while examining the mech and waiting for the newcomer’s identity to be revealed.

The upper portion of the mechs chest bore the same purple symbol Drift himself had worn when he first arrived, branding him as a Decepticon. He was a large ground-frame with the distinctive head of an Empurata victim despite having hands instead of the claws which should have replaced them. Either the procedure had been botched or the mech had somehow gotten that portion of his Empurata reversed.

It didn’t surprise Wing that someone subjected to Empurata would join the side opposing the ones who endorsed the procedure.

“ _Shockwave_.” Drift breathed, his frame relaxing despite the disturbing implications of the glyph used for the Decepticon’s designation. “What’s going on?”

So _this_ was Shockwave; the mech who had recognised Drift for one of his own and recruited him to the Decepticons. From Drift’s occasional stories Wing gathered that Shockwave had been a largely positive influence on the Ovaria’s younger years.

So _why_ were they being restrained?

“I have waited a long time for you to come of age, Drift.” Shockwave said, ignoring Drift’s question and acting as if they were simply continuing an interrupted conversation while he ran a casual scan over the speedster. “Given your state when I found you I wondered if you ever would, however it seems the recent rebuilds and enforced rest have restarted your stalled development.”

“What the slag are you talking about, Shockwave?” Drift demanded; yanking futilely against his bonds. “Come on, untie me already. This is ridiculous!”

The Deception’s plating twitched with an emotion Wing couldn’t decipher until Shockwave’s EM Field flowed over the two unaligned mecha. It carried a faint amusement his featureless face couldn’t show but apart from that felt _nothing_ like that of any mech Wing had ever met. Not only was it _different_ in the same subtle way that Drift’s was when the Ovaria wasn’t paying attention, it also lacked anything that would indicate Shockwave was a normal, well-adjusted mech.

_Not just Empurata, then. Shadowplay as well. Possibly torture, too. But was that before or_ after _he met Drift?_

For the first time since he had come to, Wing began to harbour serious doubts about their chances.

“I am aware of the state of your processors and memory core after that ill-advised booster to the head, Deadlock.” Shockwave said with obvious indifference. “But I _am_ willing to reiterate what I have told you before. You were deprived of proper fuel and the necessary nutrients during your formative vorns so that your growth was stunted. Your physical maturity would have therefore been delayed, if you achieved it at all.”

“I remember that. So what?” The grounder demanded with growing anger. “What the Pit are you playing at, Shockwave? This is crazy, even for you!”

Typical Drift; reacting with belligerence when he was confused. Not even abduction and being bound could dull the speedster’s fire.

Wing almost smiled.

“So the rebuild and the enforced leisure with that little enclave of neutrals have enabled your frame to complete its development.” The Decepticon ignored Drift’s outburst, choosing to answer as if he had been asked politely. “Congratulations, Deadlock. You are on the edge of maturity.”

“What, you think that just because I got a few new parts and a holiday I'm suddenly going to go through _puberty?_ ” Drift scoffed, using a glyph usually applied to mechanimals and organics. “Nice one Shockwave. You should pack up your test tubes and go into showbusiness. You'd make a _killing_ as a comedian.”

Shockwave's helm tilted and his already cold EM Field took on a dangerous edge. Drift obviously knew how to get under this mech’s plating.

“Over the next decaorn or two you will begin to notice the changes in your frame that will prove the truth of what I am telling you.” Shockwave said his vocal tone still calm and reasonable. “I would like to give you the opportunity to join me willingly. Not the Decepticons, but _myself_. I still pursue our original goal, which the Decepticons unfortunately no longer share.”

Wing silently begged Drift to look at him but the speedster's blue optics remained fixed on the Decepticon. Wing could clearly see the conflicted expression on Drift’s face as he gave Shockwave’s offer honest consideration.

Even now Wing wasn't precisely sure how much the other mech had changed. While he was doing well enough within the structured life of a Knight Apprentice and was now able to roam the city freely, he knew the Ovaria still longed for the freedom. Drift often expressed the desire to leave and put an end to the war that was consuming the rest of the Cybertronian species and the scattered remnants own kind along with it.

In the end how strong a hold did New Crystal City _really_ have on Drift?

_Don't do it, Drift._ Please _don't do it._

The silence dragged on, broken only by the pain-roughened venting of the two captive mechs.

Shockwave's single yellow optic bored into Drift.

The stalemate only lasted a few breems but to the anxious jet it felt like days.

“I'm sorry Shockwave. I can't.” The words dragged from Drift's vocaliser like they weighed several tons each.

They made Wing's spark sing.

“I see.” Shockwave's vocalisation was completely neutral.

“What, you're not disappointed?” Drift sounded confused, frowning up at the large Decepticon.

“No. After my observations of your activity on the planet surface I would be greatly disappointed if you had returned to the fold so easily.” Shockwave's words were mild but they seemed to strike Drift like punches to the chassis.

“So what are you planning to do with us?” Wing spoke up for the first time.

It was a calculated move to buy Drift time to recover his equilibrium. It was obvious that the situation had him rattled and Shockwave’s open admission of spying had thrown him completely. An unsettled Drift was an impulsive, aggressive Drift who would lash out instead of thinking.

Shockwave was playing Drift like a master and it made Wing suspicious.

Three optics turned to look at the jet, one calculating golden one and two stunned sky-blue.

“I shall be retaining Drift for my purposes.” Shockwave admitted easily. “I did not need his willing cooperation, although having it would have reduced complications.”

“I _can't_ say I'm unhappy that he said no, Shockwave.” The femme from earlier said, bouncing on her toepieces in a parody of sparkling-like excitement as she moved fearlessly around Shockwave's bulk to bare her pointed denta in a feral grin at the captive mechs. “It's been _so_ long since I've had time to _really_ enjoy myself with some of our guests. Your experiments aren't exactly what us non-science-types would call ' _fun_ '.”

“Shockwave,” Drift said urgently, looking past the psychotic little femme to meet the giant Decepticon's optic, “If it’s just me you need then Wing’ll be useless to you. You don’t need the Knight so send him home so his friends don't come looking for us. Nothing matters to the Knights outside of their precious _city_.” Drift spat the last word as if it was something toxic. “Send Wing back and I’ll cooperate.”

Despite his lack of facial features Wing could tell that Shockwave was unmoved by Drift's words. In fact he seemed almost amused, if an Emputara victim could be said to actually 'look' anything. The little femme's grin widened, saw-like denta bared to the point where she looked positively demented.

“You are correct, Deadlock. I have no need for the flightframe at present.” Shockwave nodded in Wing's direction, “Myein, please release the jet.”

Wing's frame tensed, folded wings flexing against the straps holding them to his back. Even without his swords he was far from helpless. All the Knight needed was one free arm and room to move and he would be able to take out the Decepticons holding them hostage.

It looked like he would soon have both.

“Ah, ah, a-ah!” Myein said in a sing-song, wagging a claw-tipped finger as she approached Wing. “No sudden movements. You're _bound_ to have gone a bit stiff from hanging up like that and we _don't_ want you falling on that pretty face now, do we?”

Drift growled, watching the strange little femme with wild optics as she strolled past him and on towards the Knight. Wing shook his head at the speedster, warning him not to interfere.

Myein studied Wing's shackles, putting obvious effort into locating the release mechanisms.

Too obvious.

Something was wrong.

The femme's faceplates went blank and her optics flared, giving Wing one astrosecond of warning as before her clawed digits struck out with deadly accuracy.

In two swift strokes she opened the shackle binding Wing's left leg with one hand and severed the main tensor cable for his leg with the other as it came around in a sweeping sideways blow to plunge directly into the back of his knee, puncturing the main hydraulic chamber at the same time. Energon and a thick gush of hydraulic fluid spouted from the hole as the femme withdrew her hand, faceplates now lit with a transcendent expression as she took a moment to observe the wound.

The pain didn't even register for Wing until Myein stepped sideways to repeat the procedure on Wing’s other leg. His ventilation system stalled and restarted with a wheeze as agony of through his frame.

Vaguely Wing thought he could hear Drift yelling, somewhere over the roaring filling his audio receptors. The femme - _Myein_ \- moved out of his line of sight, shocking the Knight into drawing on his training to shunt the pain aside and focus as proximity warnings flashed over his HUD.

The binding on Wing’s right arm released and he struck out with it as his frame swung to hang from the shackle still holding his left arm.

Wing’s blow connected with a thin forearm, foiling the strike aimed to incapacitate his arm. It was deflected instead so the claws raked down his armoured side. A vicious chop from the femme's other hand punched through the thin plating at Wing’s elbow to cut through the main motor cables controlling his limb.

The jet’s right arm was now useless.

Drift’s endless litany of snarled curses formed a strangely fitting backdrop to Wing’s silent struggle as Myein calmly disabled his left arm before releasing the jet from the last of his chains.

Unable to stand, Wing crumpled to the floor. He landed awkwardly on his side, sliding a little in the pool of spilled energon and hydraulic fluid. The shock of the landing jarred his fresh wounds and forced a sharp noise from his vocaliser.

“There you go, sweetspark.” Myein said cheerfully, hauling Wing upright and propping him up against the wall with obscene care. “You’re free to walk out of here _whenever_ you feel like it. Just tap on the door and someone will let you out”

Wing made optic contact with Drift, finally silencing the Ovaria’s stream of obscenities.

“Not without Drift.” The Knight said simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Obligatory Romance Day, everyone! ^.^


	4. Limited Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift and Wing discover some of what is in store for them.

# Chapter Four: Limited Disclosure

Drift ignored the Decepticons as he gaped at the Knight. Wing was just _sitting_ there in his own gore with limbs sprawled everywhere, calmly insisting that he would leave with Drift or not at all.

It had never been more obvious to the Ovaria that he and the jet were of different species.

He just didn’t understand Wing at all.

Drift’s thoughts chased themselves around his straining processors. It was obvious that Wing couldn’t leave under his own power anymore, making Myein’s promise into the kind of sick joke Decepticons enjoyed. However, Drift thought there might still be a slim chance that if he proved he was going to cooperate with Shockwave then the Decepticon would let Wing leave. He knew that the Incubator was cold, but he kept his word.

At least, he used to.

Even if Drift could get them to just dump Wing back in the desert then the jet would be able to contact New Crystal City and someone would come tearing out to find him and get him back to a Medic.

Right?

Desperation rising within him, Drift tore his optics away from Wing and turned his helm to look at Shockwave and Myein, trying to calculate his chances.

The larger Decepticon was observing Myein as the femme slowly licked Wing’s hydraulic fluid and energon off her claws. Drift’s tanks lurched, inappropriately reminding him that he hadn’t fuelled since before leaving New Crystal City with Wing an unknown period of time ago.

_Shut up, stupid tank. You’ve gone longer on less._

The little happy noises leaving the femme’s vocaliser as she savoured the taste of Wing’s vital fluids finally broke through the weird detached feeling that had been keeping Drift quiet.

“WHAT THE SLAG WAS THAT ABOUT, SHOCKWAVE?!” The speedster roared, struggling against his restraints. “I _said_ I’d cooperate with you. There was _no need_ for her to do that!”

“I beg to differ.” Shockwave said, calmly watching Myein suck an opposable digit, her optics dimming with pleasure. “Not only does Myein require toys to keep her tractable and to ensure she refrains from amusing herself with my assistants, if the jet remains here it will also be much simpler to ensure your genuine compliance and negate the necessity of wasting resources preventing rescue attempts.”

“I’m allowed to do _anything_ I want with you two, as long as I don’t do anything to ‘ _hamper your participation_ ’ in Shockwave’s little experiment.” The femme trilled happily, making little quotative motions with partially-cleaned claws around what was obviously a word-for-word recital of Shockwave’s instructions.

Drift fought the urge to purge his tanks.

“Oh don’t look at me like _that_ ,” Myein said piteously, clasping her messy four-fingered hands together beneath her chin “You _know_ that we can’t get into your silly Syngnathi processors and do things the easy way. You _do_ remember what happened to your patron before you met him, _don’t you?_ ”

Having his true nature spoken of so casually in the same sentence as Shockwave’s terrible torture at the hands of Cybertronians by this, this utterly _deranged_ being hit Drift like a shrapnel shot to the chest.

Drift’s optics cycled violently and his entire respiratory system stalled.

He didn’t dare look at Wing.

“What?” Deep red optics widened innocently, “I’m certain _everyone_ in this room already knew about you, Deadlock! Not to worry though, I _promise_ your little secret is safe with me”

As much as he wanted to growl at the happy trilling from the creepy little femme, Drift forced himself to stay silent. His optics and Field blazed with hatred and promised the kinds of violence he’d enact if he got free.

“So _anyway_ , I’m here to make you obedient in the good old-fashioned way so long as I don’t damage your worth as test subjects.” Myein sounded pleased.

While on the surface the femme seemed to be completely oblivious to the reaction her words obtained, Drift could feel her field tracking every twitch and ripple of his own so he had no doubts at all that the vicious creature knew just how worried he was.

Drift knew what Decepticons were capable of.

Wing didn’t. Not really.

“It’s going to be _ever_ so much more fun for me than sitting on my aft watching some cerebro-specialist muck about with your brain module.” The femme cracked the joints of her four-fingered hands in a way that sounded truly unhealthy.

Shockwave stepped forward, taking control of the situation.

Something almost like gratitude flickered through Drift. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take of Myein’s gloating before he lost control of his temper and did something pointless and stupid. The familiar surroundings made it easy to fall back into old behaviour patterns.

“Myein; sedate them and we shall move on with evaluation.”

Of all the things Shockwave could have possibly said at that moment it was definitely a candidate for ‘least reassuring’.

“Evaluation?” Drift demanded, raising an optical ridge at Shockwave.

The brightly coloured femme took an injector kit out of her subspace, fitting a pre-measured ampule into the chamber with smooth motions that spoke of long practice.

The sight of the injector kit woke a familiar hunger in Drift.

He could taste the memory of Syk on the back of his glossa and his lines started to burn, demanding the euphoric rush.

He didn’t even realise that he was staring at the femme’s hands until Shockwave to answer his question. Drift tore his optics away from the hauntingly familiar device to focus on the Decepticon’s cycloptic face as he replied to Drift’s one-word question.

“You are to be taken to Medical for a full physical evaluation and to be fitted with a feeding tube,” Shockwave spoke without inflection, as if none of these abnormal arrangements meant anything special to him. “You currently do not have the right to handle your own fuelling. From past experience with you Deadlock, I know that if we do not intubate you then your stubbornness will overcome good sense. This is a critical time in your development and you must not be become undernourished at any cost.”

“ _WHAT?!_ You’re slagging _joking_.” Drift tried to jerk away from Myein as she approached, EM field heavy against his. “I _said_ I’d cooperate, didn’t I?”

“While your outward appearance has obviously changed a great deal since we last met I do not believe that you are that different at Spark.” Shockwave’s featureless face showed nothing as he watched his aide press the injector unit to a line in Drift’s neck. “If given a chance you will doubtlessly waste it in futile rebellion.”

Drift could feel the drug beginning to spread through his system, aided by the frantic thudding of his fuel pump. The femme loaded a fresh ampule into the syringe and advanced towards Wing where he was propped against the wall.

“ _You’re_ coming too, sweetspark.” Myein cooed, “It _is_ a little difficult to fuel yourself without the use of your arms after all, and we wouldn’t want you to go hungry now, would we?”

Colorful plating moved in front of white and the world went black.


	5. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave waits patiently for Drift's frame to finish developing. Myein waits less patiently.  
> Drift and Wing try not to go insane from boredom while they wait for a chance to escape.

Wing onlined to pain.

Pain and a slew of notifications on his HUD he really didn’t want to look at first thing. Pushing them aside he brought his optics online to take stock of the situation.

He was in a different cell from the one he’d previously awoken in, propped against the wall facing Drift just as he’d been when Myein injected him with the sedative. Except now his limbs were arranged so it looked like he’d taken up his position against the wall of his own free will. They were obviously not in the same room he’d been drugged in, but the Knight’s first concern was Drift.

The grounder was still immobilised and had been deliberately bound in a way that wouldn’t cause damage if he was left tied up for a while. From the pattern of ropes crossing Drift’s chassis Wing recognised a configuration that not only kept him from moving but would also inhibit his ability to transform to his altmode _and_ Syngnath form. There was a new hose extending from the plating of Drift’s torso that looked like it went under his plating somewhere in the region of his fuel tank. A glance down showed Wing that he also had one, the external nozzle hooked tidily to his chest vents.

Even though the grounder had been sedated before Wing he was still unconscious, vents opening and closing in a steady rhythm.

With Drift’s status established, Wing turned his attention to the room they were in to, hoping to assess it for weaknesses.

At first glance there didn’t appear to be any.

Wing knew this was deceptive. Every cage had its weaknesses. You just had to look hard enough and you would find them

The room was larger than the torture chamber they’d initially been held in; sterile and brightly-lit with overhead lights that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Medbay. Drift was trussed on a berth opposite the wall Wing occupied. With a start, the Knight realised he was no longer on the floor.

_They’re keeping us comfortable. How kind._

There was a large observation window in the door and the lack of wall decoration lead Wing to assume that at least one of the walls was probably some form of one-way viewport. He was willing to bet a month of scrubbing the Citadel’s washracks that their room had been outfitted with additional audio and visual pickups as well.

Seeing that Drift was still out cold, Wing reluctantly dragged his attention back to the notifications that had been thrown to his HUD when he booted up.

They weren’t comforting.

 _Self-repair compromised, access to sensornet controls disabled, Comms disabled, locked out of my flight systems, Chonometer disabled, T-cog disabled, damaged hydraulics_ removed _from upper arms and thighs without replacement, wounds repaired and a whole bunch of weird fuel additives in my tank. This doesn’t look good._

It was no longer surprising that he was still in pain. He hadn’t expected to be given anaesthetics but without access to his own sensornet controls Wing was unable to manually disable his neural relays and relieve the pain that way.

_Good thing I ended up with so many penances, then._

Drift moaned and shifted on his berth, snapping to full awareness in a way Wing was extremely familiar with. The Ovaria tried to lunge upright and managed to get his torso several inches off the berth before meeting the limits of his restraints and crashing back down again.

“W-Wing?” Drift croaked, his vocaliser crackling with static.

“Here, Drift.” Wing extended his EM Field as far as he could.

Drift met him halfway, Wing could feel the frantic worry in his field dissolve into relief. The Ovaria turned his head to gaze blearily at Wing, digging one finial deep into the padding on his berth.

“You alright?” He asked groggily.

“I’m as good as can be expected,” The jest responded, trying to push the truth of that into his Field. “They didn’t fix me but it looks like they’re feeding us well.”

There were a few moments of silence as Drift consulted his HUD. Wing took advantage of the distraction to get a better hold over the amount of pain he was projecting.

“Huh, they are.” Drift commented, wriggling experimentally against his bonds. “All the additives a growing Syngnath needs.”

The last sentence was bitter. Wing was searching for something to say when Drift suddenly raised his head as far as the restraints would allow, shouting.

“Yeah, everything a growing Syngnath needs. _Thanks_ , Shockwave. You’re a real _pal_.” The bitterness only increased with the volume.

Wing cycled his optics blankly as Drift’s head thumped back down onto his berth. Drift caught the dumbfounded expression on Wing’s face, or maybe he picked up something through his Field. The Ovaria had always been particularly good at sensing EM Fields. He gave the jet an ironic look.

“I know the mech; he’ll have this place monitored so well he’ll know if we so much as get an itch.” Drift explained. “He also knows me, so he knows I’m not going to take this lying down.”

The statement and a little nudge from Drift’s EM Field startled a laugh from Wing. Drift’s sense of humour had taken him a while to get used to.

“So, what have we got to work with here?” Drift asked, tossing his helm back and forth against his berth. “I can’t really see much from down here.”

Wing described the room, Drift pushing for more details of one or two things the Knight hadn’t considered important during his own inspection of their cage. Without access to his chronometer and with the even, unchanging lighting of the room it felt like hours before Drift sighed and smacked his helm uselessly against the padded berth-top a few times.

A low fuel warning popped up on Wing’s HUD and he dismissed it.

“Not much to work with, then. Shock’s getting paranoid in his old age.” Drift grumbled.

Without warning the door slammed open, startling the captives.

Wing felt his flightpanels scrape the wall, shifting his frame just enough for his wounds to begin throbbing all over again when he’d almost gotten used to the constant background ache. Drift’s entire frame locked up defensively and launched him about an inch straight up into the air. The impact of hitting the berth again made him wheeze.

A flash of bright enamel sent conflicting impulses though Wing’s frame. He was torn between keeping a watchful optic on the dangerous femme who’d just walked in with bright pouches of energon in her hands and not wanting to see the claws that had robbed him of his limbs.

_Come on, Wing. Focus._

“Feeding time, kiddies!” Myein declared, sounding significantly less cheerful than the last time Wing had heard her.

She moved towards Drift first and Wing saw the grounder tense.

“None of that, freak.” The femme’s voice was cold. “You so much as twitch a _finger_ and I’ll ‘forget’ to give your friend his fuel.”

There was no attempt at intimidation in voice or Field, just a statement of fact.

_So; they’re going to use us against each other._

Grinding his denta, Drift stayed obediently still. His Field vibrated with tension as Myein poured his ration through his feeding tube, directly into his tank. When she was done she leaned forward and sniffed at Drift’s vents, making him twitch. With a disappointed sigh she left the trussed Syngnath and turned towards the jet.

Wing forcibly suppressed a shudder when she approached, desperately wishing he still had some way of moving.

Now he was _unable_ to look away as those four-fingered hands came dangerously close to his Spark to snag the feeding tube hanging from his vents. She completed the fuel infusion without wasting a drop, silently capping the hose and hooking the loose end back onto Wing’s chest vents when she was done.

He blinked in shock at the fuel notice on his HUD. The amount in the bag had been precisely calculated, bringing his levels back to optimum.

The captives remained silent and the femme left, slamming the door behind her.

“Lovely service they have here,” Wing commented dryly. “Remind me to leave her a tip.”

Drift stared incredulously then burst into almost hysterical laughter. Wing smiled, chuckling softly. As he had discovered when Myein entered, sharp movements made it harder to keep the pain under control.

“They were right; I _have_ been a bad influence on you.” Drift commented, flexing his plating experimentally

“Why did she sniff you?” Wing asked, “That was more than the usual level of strange I would expect from Myein, based on her past behaviour.”

Drift looked distinctly uncomfortable, his Field pulling away. Wing reached after it, telling himself that the comfort of the contact was more for Drift’s benefit than his own.

The grounder turned his face away, refusing to look at the Knight who was waiting patiently. They didn’t have to do but talk or meditate to pass the time, after all.

He would answer eventually.

“She was checking for the aerosols.” Drift admitted after a long period of silence, “When the… cycle starts my frame will start to release a chemical compound that tells any mechanism with a working olfactory sensor that I’m in heat. Usually I’ll just smell weird and a simple neutraliser can hide it.”

The phrasing seemed a little off, but with most of his processor power going into hiding his pain from Drift the jet couldn’t figure out why it sounded weird.

“You can’t smell any worse than some of your first attempts at gelled energon with flavourings.” Wing teased, trying to pull Drift from his gloomy mood. Despair would be lethal. “I thought I’d _never_ get the smell out of my plating.”

“That was once! _Once!_ ” Drift protested, jumping at the change in subject faster than Wing expected him to. “And how was a gutter rat like me supposed to know that it would react like that?”

They bickered pleasantly, passing time until their voices slowed and Drift fell into recharge.

It was more difficult for Wing to drop off, the conversation had helped keep his mind off the pain and without it he was finding it harder than he anticipated. Without his chronometer he had no way of telling how much time had actually passed, but the Knight was fairly sure this was the longest he had gone without pain relief for an injury since New Crystal City had been established.

He settled for meditation instead of sleep, seeking solace in the familiar while Drift slept.

Some time later Myein appeared again with pouches of energon to refill their tanks, interrupting a friendly competition over who could come up with the most ludicrous escape plan. The only thing to distinguish this visit from the last was when the femme making a disgusted noise when she couldn’t detect any change in Drift’s ex-vents.

After the third such feeding Wing was starting to miss the act of voluntarily consuming his fuel. When he brought it up Drift admitted that he did too, but seemed to be coping with it much better than the Knight. Because of his past he didn’t seemed to mind how his tank was filled so long as there was fuel in it.

Their personal tormentor’s mood deteriorated each time she visited. Drift’s lack of breeding scent apparently meant Shockwave’s orders not to ‘play’ with the captives still held. As time dragged onwards Drift started shifting on his berth more often, obviously as uncomfortable with the enforced idleness as the jet. He was only still when recharging or meditating.

The fifth time she came to fuel them Myein was in a truly foul mood.

Drift made the mistake of baiting the femme about the illogical fuelling process and she stormed towards him with a clawed hand raised to strike the helpless Ovaria in direct violation of Shockwave’s orders.

Two steps away from Drift Myein froze as if hitting a wall, vents cycling deeply.

Her entire demeanour changed, optics flaring and frame language becoming softer.

 “It’s about time, sweetheart.” She purred, caressing Drift’s cheek. “I thought you were going to make us wait _forever!_ ”

After that little non-sequitur the femme ignored anything else her two victims said and followed the established routine for fuelling them. When the ordeal was over Myein skipped from the cell, looking happier than Wing had seen her she licked his spilled energon from her fingers.

Drift looked horrified, panic and denial filling his field where the outer layers tangled with the Knights. His optics were wide and bright with fear.

“Drift?” Wing prodded softly, soothing with his Field.

“I-It’s started.” Drift said roughly, terrified optics boring into the jet. “It’s started, Wing. I’m so sorry.”

Wing frowned at the Ovaria, trying to push as much calm at the panicking mech as he could. Some of his physical pain leaked through the contact but Drift didn't seem to notice, focused instead on what he probably thought was his frame's betrayal.

“Drift, this isn’t your fault. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

For the first time since they’d met Drift looked like he wanted to cry.

“I- Wing, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Myein' is a codename for my TFOC Mystere. She's a fucking bitch but Meister wasn't available so we have to make do.


	6. Creeping Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wait is over.  
> Hell is only just beginning.

“I- Wing, there’s something I haven’t told you.” Drift admitted.

He could feel quickly-smothered betrayal in Wing’s Field, along with the carefully controlled suspicion the jet allowed to remain present.

It stabbed Drift through the Spark.

“The first heat aerosols, they affect normal Cybertronians.” Drift babbled desperately, trying to regain the trust he knew he’d just destroyed. “It’s the only time they do. Every other heat just smells funny but the first one is _different_ somehow.”

Wing was studying the wall just over Drift’s helm, not looking at the grounder. Drift’s vocaliser glitched, filling his words with static. He forcibly reset it to clear the interference and continued.

“Your frames don’t have the right…parts to respond properly so the urges get shunted into other systems, I don’t know how or why.” Drift was pleading now, begging with voice and Field for Wing to believe him, understand what he was saying, Primus, even just _look at him_. “From the stories I’ve heard I know it’s usually battle protocols or interfacing systems that get activated. Sometimes both, and-”

Wing looked at him then, optics bright and a brief flash of horror shooting through his Field.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think I would need to. I honestly thought I was going to spend my entire functioning as some kind of neutered freak.” Drift thought he saw something in Wing’s face soften a little, “And I was scared, ok? I admit it. I was fragging _terrified_ of giving everyone another reason to look at me funny and mutter about kicking me out or terminating the dangerous Syngnath before it went on a rampage. Primus help me, I wanted to _belong_.”

Silence fell on their cell, thick and suffocating. Drift wondered what Shockwave and the other listeners were making of his outburst.

 _Frag them_.

“What would you have done if it _had_ happened?” Wing finally asked. His optics bored into Drift, demanding the truth.

“As soon as I saw the first signs I would have told you and the mechs in charge. Locked myself up in a hermetic sealed room with a nest and a bunch of interface toys and waited it out. I’ve had a chemical neutraliser unit in my subspace from the moment I had supplies to build one, didn’t matter if I thought I’d never use it.”

The jet cycled his vents deeply, the interrogative edge fading from his Field as he processed Drift’s words.

“Thank you for your honesty, Drift.” The Knight said. “I will need to meditate and process this properly. Afterwards I need you to tell me what to expect, as much as you know, and we can work out a way to deal with it.”

Drift nodded, optics shining. A cold breeze made him realise that his cheeks were wet.

 _I’m not crying_.

Wing offered him a sad smile, before offlining his optics and withdrawing his Field. Drift pulled his own Field back at the unspoken request, giving the jet what privacy he could and the closest thing to an undisturbed mediation they could manage in their current condition.

It hurt.

It hurt far more than Drift had thought it would as Wing pulled away from him. He’d been trying so hard to protect the jet from the crueller realities of being Syngnathi and Wing acted as if he’d been deliberately trying to hurt him.

_What else would he expect from a Decepticon?_

Silenced reigned in their cell.

Drift twitched occasionally. Whatever material had been used to restrain him felt scratchy where it passed between the plates of his armour. He kept his discomfort to himself, focusing on keeping his venting even in the stuffy room.

They still hadn’t spoken by the time Myein arrived with their next bags of fuel. Wing didn’t even twitch as she manipulated his feeding hose. Drift couldn’t tell if Wing was deep in mediation or simply ignoring the femme. When she approached the Ovaria Myein melodramatically clapped a hand over her lower face.

“Deadlock, _when_ did you last visit the washracks?” She exclaimed. “You smell _disgusting!_ ”

Drift bared his denta and snarled. The inability to move was making him extremely short-tempered.

Myein uncovered her face and stepped closer, leaning right into Drift’s personal space and inhaling deeply through her vents. She straightened up and shook her helm and a finger at the Ovaria then went through the process of force-fuelling him through the hose connected to his tank.

While this happened Drift indulged himself with a fantasy of bodily hurling his tormentor through one of the one-way viewports.

It didn’t go as smoothly as usual. Myein’s hands trembled slightly when trying to re-cap the feeding hose, and she fumbled with the closure. Drift smirked and raised an optic ridge at the femme.

“What, big bad Myein scared of a stinky little Syngnath?” He taunted.

While he hadn’t tried very hard to provoke Myein so far, that little jab seemed to be a very effective way of doing so. An ugly expression clouded her faceplates and the femme leaned forward, pressing her forehelm to Drifts. Her Field whipped at his with calculated cruelty.

“Don’t think we haven’t noticed your little lovers’ spat, _Deadlock_.” Myein hissed before switching to sympathetic tones. “You have _no_ need to worry about dear Wing. He’ll change his tune _very_ soon. Just you watch; all he’ll be able to think about is _how much_ he wants you.”

Drift spat in her face.

Myein laughed and skipped out of the room with the oral solvents dribbling down her cheek, leaving the prisoners to their silence.

It was obvious from in increasing size of Wing’s fuel portions and his slightly haggard expression that he wasn’t recharging much. Between that and the occasional slips in his EM Field Drift knew the jet was lying about how much pain he was in.

 _I bet they disabled his sensornet access, too_.

He tried to follow Wing’s example and meditate with limited success. The steadily increasing sensitivity of his frame made his restraints impossible to ignore. The fuel Myein forced into his tank ran through his lines, seeking release in racing or fighting or fragging.

Drift needed to move.

 _Needed_ to.

Something, ANYTHING.

It didn’t matter as long as he was moving.

Recharge happened rarely, if it happened at all. He would drop in and out of fevered half-dreams made of twisted memory fragments and pieces of wishful thinking. Any advanced form of meditation soon became a thing of the past. Too often now the most he could do was keep his venting even and hold his frame still so he didn’t disturb Wing.

When the energy he was being given couldn’t find an outlet in movement it turned into warmth instead. His frame was slowly heating, roasting him alive inside his armour. Every now and then Drift caught himself whining low in his vocaliser, twisting against the cables binding him in search of relief.

He wasn’t quite sure what he was seeking. He didn’t want to think too hard about it.

The only thing worse than being still was the silence in the room.

Wing still hadn’t spoken by the time Myein came back for another force-fuelling.

Or the one after that.

Or even the one after that.

Only his steady vents and occasional brushes of his EM Field showed that the jet was still online.

Each time she came the femme grinned at Drift from behind a respiratory filter-mask, her main vents sealed off so she wouldn’t inhale any of the aerosol compounds his frame was producing in massive quantities.

One time, as well as his usual bag of fuel Myein also topped up Drift’s coolant. He caught himself repeatedly thanking her and bit his glossa sharply.

“Aww, you’re welcome!” Myein cooed, patting his cheek. “You are absolutely _adorable_ when you’re like this. Did you know that?”

Drift glared silently, momentarily shocked back into rationality.

When the femme finally left him in peace Drift was surprised to see Wing’s optics powered on, inspecting him warily. They burned in a way Drift had seen turned on others many, many times.

And now that intense gaze was focused on _him_.

His frame yearned towards the promise in those yellow optics, whimpering low in his throat.

Wing shuttered his optics briefly, breaking the spell and Drift suddenly realised what he’d just done. Humiliation temporarily smothered the breeding heat torturing his frame and he turned his helm to the wall.

“I’m sorry, Wing.”

Small, useless words.

As small and useless as Drift felt in the face of their current situation.

_It’s all my fault._

“I’m so sorry.”

His vents hitched and he stopped speaking before he started crying. Without any physical outlet the heat was making him emotionally volatile. It was humiliating but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“Drift, look at me.” Wing commanded.

Despite lack of use the jet’s voice was free of static. Drift did as asked, rolling his helm cautiously sideways.

Wing still had that intense look but there was something else in his expression now, hard determination which reminded Drift that the Cybertronian mech was a warrior.

“You will need to resume your Syngnath form before the end of your heat, won’t you?” The jet asked; optics boring into Drift.

It took the Ovaria a while to grasp the significance of the question. His processors were fogged and he kept getting distracted by Wing’s frame, all clean lines and bright armour waiting on the other berth. Drift wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted but in a pinch the jet would do. He caressed the other’s EM Field. There was desire there, maybe he could convince the pretty flyer to open his panels and…

“Drift?” Wing’s voice was sharp and worried, his Field giving a lurch and retreating out of range.

Drift snapped back to himself with a rush of pure horror, startled optics locking with Wing’s confused ones. The jet’s ventilations were cycling louder but they were still no match for his when embarrassment made his internal temperature climb even higher.

“I- _slag_ , Wing I’m s-” The grounder almost sobbed, uncontrollable tremors wracking his frame.

“ _Enough_ , Drift.” Wing snapped, “Answer my question.”

“I can’t lay like this,” Drift said worriedly, shifting against his bindings. “Not safely, anyway. They seem to want us alive, so to keep me that way they’ll have to untie me before the end.”

Wing nodded to himself, his flightpanels scraping against the wall.

“When they do I want to you run, Drift. Do whatever you have to in order to escape.” Wing’s voice was hard, his Field came back to press into Drift with determination, affection and inescapable _command_. “You know what needs to be done and you are the only one of us capable of doing it.”

The jet’s logic was inescapable and Drift rejected it with every atom of his being.

“No, Wing.” Drift whispered, “Wing, I _can’t_.”

“You _must_.”

Golden optics burned and Drift found himself bowing before the absolute authority in Wing’s Field. He didn’t understand how, but his coding had somehow accepted Wing as someone on the same social level as a Clan Elder. He suppressed the urge to bare his throat to claws the jet simply didn’t have.

“ _Promise me_ , Drift.” Wing demanded, something desperate surfacing briefly in his Field.

“I… I promise.” The Ovaria croaked.

There wasn’t anything else he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOP HERE WE GO
> 
> EDIT: An Ovaria's first heat pheromones basically turn Cybertronians into the Reivers from Firefly (minus the cannibalism) until the chemical compounds clear their systems. NOT FUN.


	7. Rising Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift's heat progresses and Wing struggles against the effects it has on his own frame.

# Chapter Seven: Rising Flames

After extracting the promise from Drift they didn’t have much to say. It had taken Wing a long time but eventually he’d decided to believe Drift when he claimed to have spoken the truth about withholding information regarding the effects of this heat. Decepticon or no, if Drift was to escape and take news of Wing’s fate to New Crystal City then the Knight had no choice but to trust the Ovaria.

No matter how difficult it was at times.

Wing watched with worry as time dragged on and Drift became increasingly delirious. The odd turns he took where the mating drive consumed him seemed to become more frequent, coming closer together and lasting longer each time.

At first he couldn’t be sure, without his chronometer it was nearly impossible for Wing to tell how much time passed in the unchanging light and constant temperature of their room.  Eventually it became obvious even without a chronometer and Wing spent most of his time trying to give Drift some privacy by shuttering his optics on the writhing grounder and retreating into meditation.

Without access to his sensornet controls he couldn’t mute his audials. The Ovaria’s voice took on a different quality at the height of each phase, his pained whines and desperate pleading alternately tugging at Wing’s Spark and heating his interfacing array in a way that made him absolutely appalled by his own lack of restraint.

When Drift was coherent they would talk, drawing what comfort they could from entwining their EM Fields before the rising tide of the Ovaria’s first heat overtook him again, driving all rational thought before it and turning his Field into a sea of desire and desperate longing.

It became harder for Wing to resist the cajoling of Drift’s EMF when the heat took him, especially as the concentration of those aerosol chemicals saturated the atmosphere with a sharp, musky scent that positively screamed ‘interfacing’ to the disabled jet. With his limbs and weaponry removed from his command the effects of Drift’s first heat seemed to go straight from Wing’s vents to his interfacing systems, forced his frame to prime itself for interface despite the fact that he was neither willing nor able to obey.

By this point Drift was delirious most of the time, returning to normal only after Myein fed them and topped up his coolant, and even then it was only a few brief minutes before he was writhing and moaning, searching unsuccessfully for relief. Their conversations dwindled to brief exchanges that worried Wing more than he allowed himself to show.

“This… isn’t right” Drift gasped after one fuelling, not waiting for Myein to leave before speaking.

Wing shot a glance at the femme’s retreating frame but their torturer and caretaker ignored the words, signalling for exit and leaving the instant the door opened wide enough for her.

“Nothing about this is right, Drift.” The Knight responded when the door closed, restoring the illusion of privacy.

The mind-fogging lust was obviously returning again, Drift wriggled and arched as best he could against his restraints.

“I need… _need_.” The Ovaria pleaded desperately, unfocused optics catching and holding Wing’s gaze.

“‘I know, Drift.” He was helpless against the naked desperation in Drift’s optics but unable to give any relief. “I know.”

A helpless whine through gritted denta and Drift was gone again, frame twitching and Field undulating sensuously in a futile attempt to entice Wing to mate. It was pure torture. The jet’s interface array had warmed with the first whiff of heat pheromones that entered his vents. As time passed and the aerosol concentration grew thicker it had long passed the point of burning torment and was now steadily approaching searing agony.

There seemed to be no end in sight.

Pulling his EMF in as tightly as he could Wing dropped into the deepest meditation he could manage, given the circumstances. He had given up on rescue the moment he asked Drift to escape. So far as the Knight could tell the only chance for even one of them to flee was reliant on Shockwave releasing Drift from his restraints. All Wing had to do was survive long enough to provide a distraction, buy Drift some time to get to a shuttle or an escape pod.

_I hope it happens when he’s lucid, otherwise…_

**-C-Click-**

The extremely out-of-place noise shocked Wing from his dark thoughts. His optics snapped online, focusing unerringly on the origin of the sound.

Drift had just lost the battle to keep his interface array covered.

Lubricant smeared the Ovaria’s upper thighs and his spike emerged in a rush, biolights almost incandescently bright. It looked so painfully hard Wing wished he could do something to ease his friend’s suffering. Drift’s optics were wide and bright, not a hint of sanity left in them as they cast blue light across faceplates that were creased in a silent snarl. He bared fanged denta up at the ceiling and his powerful grounder engine roared, shaking the air of their small room. Wing determinedly ignored the burning between his own legs and the desire to impale himself on Drift’s gloriously erect spike as the speedster whined and shuddered, twitching his hips in search of friction.

He’d never seen _anyone_ so desperately aroused before. It looked like the lightest touch would tip Drift into overload.

Of course, none were forthcoming. Wing couldn’t even change his own position without help, let alone give Drift a moment’s respite from his near-constant arousal.

All Wing could do was watch the Ovaria slowly deteriorate while he struggled uselessly against his own reactions to Drift’s EMF and aerosol chemicals. It was a special kind of hell, one he felt certain not even Unicron the Unmaker would subject sentient beings to. The pain of his injuries helped a little, but eventually the rising tide of lust swamped even that. Myein had no problems with the atmosphere when she came with fuel and fluid top-ups. By now the femme had full hazard seals applied to all but the most vital vents and even those were protected by the kind of filters normally reserved for instances of airborne plague or biological warfare. To add insult to injury she seemed to shrug off Drift’s intoxicating EMF with ease.

When he could think beyond the lust clouding his processors Wing wanted to eviscerate Myein. Slowly. The savage violence of he own fantasies would have horrified him at any other time. Right now he couldn’t care less.

Something he hadn’t counted on when Drift explained what was to come was the sheer strength of the Ovaria’s EMF. Objectively Wing knew it had always been stronger than usual, either as a species trait or an individual quirk, but now it was overwhelming. The young Syngnath was absolutely fixated on Wing as the nearest source of relief and in his delirium he poured everything he had into using his EMF to entice the jet to interface. It lapped at the Knight, pursuing him even when he drew his own Field back to lie just beneath his armour.

The only time he could escape it was when Drift simply passed out from exhaustion.

During those brief reprieves Wing sought the calm depths of meditation, trying to bolster his flagging mental energies and exert some control over his unruly frame. Occasionally he too would reach the ends of his frame’s endurance and also recharge, but never for very long.

By now Drift’s pheromones were so thick in the air that the jet could taste them, it felt like some sort of thick residue was coating his glossa and  the only way to be rid of it would be to lick something, someone, _Drift_. His panting mouth, the sleek white plating of his rebuild, that straining spike with the pulsing biolights –or even better, bury his head between the speedster’s thighs and frag him with his glossa until the vaguely mineral tang of valve lubricant filled his mouth and tanks. His was gripped by an all-consuming need to replace Drift’s musky aerosols with the ozone of repeated overloads and the scent of scorched reproductive nanites.

Wing licked his lips, optics travelling Drift’s frame as he planned out what he would do, where he would touch, where he would kiss and nibble to bring the speedster the most pleasure before relieving them both of their searing desire. He was in the process of leaning forward, shifting his balance and preparing to stand when pain roared out from damaged limbs and non-existent hydraulics. Alerts crowded his HUD, brutally dragging Wing from his fantasies and slamming him back into a semblance of rationality.

_Oh Primus, Drift._

Guilt surged out into Wing’s Field before he could stop it but the Ovaria was oblivious, too deep in his own private hell to notice the world around him.

_At least my panels didn’t open._

Inevitably, Wing lost control of his frame.

It happened while he recharged. As usual, his frame and processor shut down into standby when he was simply too exhausted to remain online any longer. When Wing awoke it was to find both primary and secondary interface panels open, spike fully pressurised and valve leaking onto the berth below him. From the trickle of fluid he could see making its way to the edge of the berth his panels had obviously been open for some time.

Complete and utter mortification flooded Wing at the sight, the emotion so intense it briefly pulled Drift from the illusions his unrelieved heat was creating for him.

The Ovaria only had time to give Wing a single apologetic caress of his EMF before he was gone again, thrashing on his berth with mindless lust while the Knight offlined his optics and tried to ignore the sensation of yet more lubricant oozing from his valve, hoping desperately that if he didn’t _look_ , didn’t _see_ , then he wouldn’t imagine what it would be like to impale himself on that rigid spike.

Whatever happened to them, Wing knew that this was quite possibly the single most humiliating situation of his entire functioning. He’d _never_ be able to forgive himself whatever weakness it was that allowed him to become aroused by Drift’s suffering.

 _I’m a_ Knight _. I should be_ better _than this._

As usual, Myein appeared at random to refuel them and top up their coolent. Wing had been expecting some sort of comment or harassment from the femme about his obvious arousal but she said nothing, hurrying through the process and almost running from the room. Wing wasn’t sure wat to make of it, staring blankly at the door as it hid bright plating behind sterile blankness again.

A snort drew his attention to the other berth, where Drift was obviously experiencing another brief period of lucidity. The Ovaria also ignored the bared and painfully ready state of their interfacing equipment, steadfastly refusing to look anywhere below Wing’s faceplates. Awkwardly, Wing tried to shift his limbs into a more comfortable position but gave up when joints that had gone unused for Primus knows how long wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t even creak in protest at the attempted movement. His optics wandered, unable to meet Drift’s gaze but just as unable to look away for very long. In an effort to break the silence he decided to stop dancing around the Ovaria’s condition.

“So, Drift. How did you imagine your first heat would be?”

Drift made a dry, unpleasant sound that might have been a laugh. His optics were far too bright as he cycled them, trying to focus on the jet. He was panting through his oral cavity in an attempt to supplement his struggling cooling systems.

“I didn’t think I’d ever have one.” He tried to shrug against the ropes restraining him. “So I never really thought about it.”

Wing tilted his helm, conceding the point but determined to keep the conversation going to distract them both.

 _This might be the las- No, I_ won’t _think like that._

“Alright; say we lived in a perfect universe, what would you do then?”

For the first time since they met Drift gave the question honest consideration. They had nothing better to do and by now he was probably used to Wing asking him these sorts of questions. He used to dismiss them all as pointless, snarling something scathing and storming off in a temper. Now he was humouring the Knight.

_Don’t think about why._

“If I could have anything…” Drift’s voice became distant, almost wistful. “There was this mech I met ages ago, before the war. I’m pretty sure he was a Syngnath too, but I never found out for sure. ”

A faint smile crossed the grounder’s faceplates and Wing felt a surge of something that might have been jealousy. He’d never seen the Ovaria look like this before. He looked almost happy; definitely nostalgic and he showed far more emotional warmth than he _ever_ had before as he recalled this mystery mech from the past.

No matter how hard Wing had tried he’d _never_ been able to bring anything like that expression to Drift’s faceplates.

It hurt.

“It was just too dangerous to try to confirm anything.” Drift seemed to come back to himself and picked up the thread of his tale. “So, as long as we’re imagining the impossible then that mech would be Syngnathi; an _Incubator_.”

Drift lingered over the glyphs of the last word with a longing that even Wing, purely Cybertronian as he was, could tell wasn’t entirely generated by the Ovaria’s active reproductive coding.

“We’d go find him, convince him to come back to New Crystal City and all three of us would force Dai Atlas to keep his word.” Something like amusement wound through Drift’s Field at the mention of Wing’s superior.

The Ovaria’s next words emerged in a rush, as if he felt the heat closing in on him again and was desperate to finish before it overtook him again.

“Then I’d have my first heat in Crystal City with the pair of you, alternately fragging both of you through every available surface. At the end of it all we’d end up with a nest full of beautiful, cunning, fast little Ovaria and strong, intelligent Incubators. With my speed, your Spark influence and his processors our sparklings would be the envy of _everyone_.”

As Drift spoke the Knight felt a dark something that had been coiling around his Spark loosen and fade. Then his recharge-deprived processor finally sorted the glyphs into their proper categories and the full meaning of what Drift had just said exploded within his consciousness.

“My… _Spark influence?_ ” He was suddenly desperate to find out what Drift meant. “What do you mean?”

Drift shifted awkwardly. Wing could see that the grounder wanted to rub the base of his finials the way he always did when embarrassed. The stream of lubricant from the jet’s desperately empty valve was soaking the back of his thighs and dripping off the berth, making a disgusting arrhythmic _plip-plip_ sound in the silence.

“Um, well.” Drift started awkwardly, stopped, then obviously gave up trying to search for words and just babbled.

“You see, while nobody’s sure how _much_ influence exactly comes from Cybertronian reproductive fluids if we interface with one of you during a heat –and we don’t always have to be receiving either, I mean the whole thing feels like it’s going _crazy_ right now- but it’s merging Sparks during the heat that determines whether or not the clutch has a chance to be ensparked. No merge, no new sparks. And any one merge doesn’t _guarantee_ newsparks either, but the Sparks doing the merging _definitely_ influence the newsparks, if are any formed. So we don’t _necessarily_ have to sparkmerge with one of our own kind to enspark a clutch.”

Wing cycled his optics several times as he sorted through the jumble of words. It took far longer than it should have for him to make sense of the flood, fighting the effects of Drift’s pheromones and the sluggishness of his own processor.

When he finally worked it out Wing felt a tearing sense of loss. Something he’d never known he could have had just been given to him and snatched away again in the same instant.

“So, if we merged, then…?” Wing let the sentence hang, unable to voice the implications.

Drift looked away, frame shuddering with something that wasn’t the heat. He spoke to the wall beside him but his words came across clearly.

“It wouldn’t work without an Incubator. Our young can’t survive outside an Incubator’s chamber.” His voice filled with static and it sounded like he was trying not to cry. “There are ways to keep ensparked eggs alive for a little bit until an Incubator can get to you, but nothing anyone has tried kept them alive past a few weeks. They’re just… too fragile.” 

“We’ll figure something out when we get out of here Drift.” Wing said firmly, deliberately pretending to forget their earlier conversation and Drift’s reluctant promise to escape alone. “I want to see your sparklings one day.”

Drift made a choking sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, the odd vocalisation quickly becoming a passionate moan. He writhed against his bonds as the period of clarity ended and the heat coding took over again. Wing felt the return of the mindless, questing lust in the Ovaria’s EM field and desperately fought the urge to react in kind.

It was the last rational conversation they had.

Hours or days later Wing was attempting to meditate, existing somewhere between the burn of desire in his frame and the steadily growing desperation in Drift’s Field when somewhere in the distance the door to their cell hissed open. He didn’t bother to online his optics. He expected Myein again, come to subject them to another feeding. The Knight waited patiently for the femme to do what she had come to do, bracing himself for the abnormal influx of fuel poured directly into his tank.

When nothing happened he brought his optics online, swallowing the hungry noise that threatened to escape when the first thing that met his optics was a dazed-looking Drift lying restrained on the opposite berth. The Ovaria’s flexible abdominal armour was bulging and shifting as if something was moving beneath it; his spike was still unflaggingly erect and a pool of purple-tinted liquid was spreading slowly beneath his pelvic array.

Drift wasn’t looking at him.

Confused, Wing followed his gaze to discover who or what had intruded into their one-room Pit.

It was Shockwave.

The mech stood tall and proud in his Syngnathi form, examining Drift intently with his single yellow optic. The slitted optical inlet spread and narrowed unnaturally, completely unlike the normal dilation of a Cybertronian optic. It sent a thrill of atavistic horror through Wing and he was glad of the damage keeping him from cowering like a frightened sparkling.

Apparently satisfied with what he was seeing, Shockwave nodded and gestured to someone behind him. Myein obediently entering the room wearing her vent filters, looking up at the Incubator with her helm tilted questioningly. Three simple words in a flat, emotionless voice turned the inferno consuming Wing’s frame into liquid nitrogen.

“It is time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be some Drift/Shockwave oviposition porn. Drift is in absolutely no position to give any form of consent all; this will be ENTIRELY coding-driven.  
> Letting you know now ahead of time so you can skip it if you want, I'll throw another warning at the start of the chapter as well.


	8. Conflagration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift gets what he needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can be read as a stand-alone PWP and will probably be tweaked a little to be posted as such. Ahahahahaaaaaa the first 'successful' oviposition I write for the Syngnathi and it's in the fucked-up gore meme fic. FML.

Drift burned.

Every atom of his body cried out with the need to interface. There was someone nearby, Cybertronian and _not_ suitable but they could help take the edge off until he found someone more appropriate.

He extended his Field, caressing that of the Cybertronian with his interest and desire to mate. Their Field was already overflowing with desire, such a delicious feeling that only grew as their spheres of influence twined and flirted shyly. But no matter how hard he tried Drift couldn’t get them to respond physically, to come over and mount his aching spike or fill his valve to overflowing. His optics weren’t focusing properly, his charge was too high. He could make out a sleek Flightframe leaning against the wall with panels open, blatantly aroused in the best possible way teasing him with the possibility of temporary relief.

Oh, their EMF reacted _beautifully_ but they wouldn’t assist him in a way that actually counted. He pressed deeper into their resonance, plucking and cajoling and trying to erode their iron will. When that failed he desperately tried to initiate Fieldplay. Even a Field overload would help a little and Drift was absolutely sure that the unrelieved lust and charge surging through his frame was going to do permanent damage if he didn’t get some form of relief soon.

The flyer was oblivious or just plain cruel, withdrawing EMF contact every time Drift felt like he was finally getting somewhere.

He wanted to scream.

A desperate, pleading sound worked its way from his vocaliser instead.

Attempts to leave his berth failed. Someone had tied him up. He couldn’t remember who. Had it been the Cybertronian? He didn’t think so, but then again Drift couldn’t be sure. It was hard to think. Everything was fuzzy. He couldn’t focus on anything except the need pounding through his lines in time with his racing Spark and the necessity of relieving it before... before… _something_. He wasn’t sure what it would be, but something was going to happen and he _really_ needed to interface before it did. The consequences of not doing so were just as vague in his mind as the approaching event itself.

All Drift was sure of was that he needed to overload. As many times as possible. Preferably Spark-to-Spark with his partner.

His spike was so hard it felt like it was going to explode, aching all the way from the tip right down to the nanite chambers inside his pelvic span. Every time he twitched against the cords restraining him more lubricant would squish from his valve to join the pool of fluid he was lying in. It was getting into the gaps in his plating, pulled deeper by surface tension and the changing pressure caused by his mindless writhing. The slippery stuff moved sensuously over Drift’s protoform, arousing and maddening. All it did was drive the desperate Ovaria’s arousal higher and he was distantly aware of a piteous whine emerging from his vocaliser in tones that made the Cybertronian twitch and shiver.

They _still_ didn’t come to help him.

After what felt like a million years of endless burning hunger a cool breeze caressed his armour, soothing stressed vents. Drift sighed with relief and tried to twist into the source of the airflow. It stopped too soon for his liking and he moaned in protest, ignoring voices and Fields that carried no hint of what he needed. They were flat, dull, uninteresting. Cybertronian voices and Fields were bland and colourless, their frames fragile and easily broken. Not enough now, not even for an overload or six.

What Drift craved now was the strength and shelter and rich deep thrum of an Incubator, one willing to carry his eggs. He needed to mate, needed to bury himself inside the slick coolness of another frame and pass on the burden he could carry no longer.

He was hot, so hot.

He was burning alive from the inside out and nobody here could help him.

Something inside him twisted and the inferno of lust surged higher, going beyond what he could endure.

Drift wailed in genuine pain.

 _This is wrong, something is_ wrong!

Transformation began against his will; the Ovaria’s frame warping unnaturally against his restraints as it sought to return to its true size and shape. Panic rose and a crackling scream ripped from Drift’s vocaliser born of physical agony and horror at in imminent messy death his own frame was forcing on him.

Claws slashed at the ropes binding him, freeing Drift bare moments before he would have suffered critical injuries.

Too stunned by sudden freedom and his brush with disaster Drift didn’t question the EM Field that suddenly filled his awareness. It teased his sensors with a siren song promising to give him everything he’d ever craved, resonant and rich and absolutely confident of its ability to do all it promised. Even in this heat-fogged daze the quality of it was unmistakable.

 _Incubator_.

Trying to find the source of that enticing EMF Drift pushed himself upright, stiff mechanisms throughout his frame refusing to work properly after weeks of lying bound and motionless. The internal structures of his lower abdomen stopped twisting and settled into a persistent, nagging pressure. They seemed to throb, waves of heat and urgency spreading outwards to lap at tingling circuits. His Field pulsed in time with his internals and Drift could feel the other Syngnath respond with encouragement and a summons he was helpless to resist.

Hazy optics still refused to focus properly but he could make out a tall form, proud and strong with branching sensory horns and a roomy chest cavity for sheltering his young. Long claws clicked and a single slitted red optic focused intently on the panting Ovaria. Drift shivered under that gaze, his frame almost unbearably full. Relief was so close. Despite the open invitation broadcast by that tempting EMF he somehow found the strength to wait.

He needed to test this mech.

Needed to know how well they could contribute to his clutch.

With a low and feral growl Drift pressed slowly outwards with his Field, feeling the Incubator give way graciously until they established a midpoint between them. The contact firmed, the other Syngnath resisting him. Increased force on Drift’s part was countered with ease. He pushed harder, purring when the brute shoving match once again ended in stalemate.

This was good, but Drift needed to know more.

He licked parched lips and leaned towards the Incubator, retracting his Field slightly only to shove it straight back without any sort of finesse. His time was too close; he couldn’t afford to play seduction games. The air congealed as the thick lust of the Ovaria’s Field slammed brutally into the upper layers of the Incubator’s strangely hollow one. Drift swung his pedes off the edge of the berth and sat spread-legged, aroused equipment displayed shamelessly as he glared and poked at the anomaly confronting him.

There was physical arousal, yes. No end of it, heady and rich and fanning his own to new heights through their shallow Field contact. Twisting and probing Drift carefully teased at the arousal, daring his potential mate to retaliate and _earn_ the eggs Drift would give him.

It was almost beautiful the way they matched him surge for surge, Fields coiling and locking in patterns that would be visible to mechs with the right visual range. Fleetingly Drift wished he had more time to enjoy this, it was better than any fieldplay he’d ever experienced.

While he was distracted the Incubator neatly anticipated Drift’s next move. Pleasure burst in a flashfire through his frame as their Fields suddenly meshed in a harmony that echoed through the room on Drift’s wavering cry as the EMF overload peaked, clearing a little of the haze from his processor as it passed through him. He panted and shuddered, studying the Incubator with slightly clearer optics while he considered what he had just learned. There was physical arousal but no passion, the Incubator was prepared for eggs but didn’t long for them. Although he hadn’t been able to test them properly Drift knew the other Syngnath was strong and smart, knew they would make a good clutch together.

_They’ll do._

With a conscious decision made and his frame primed by the EMF overload Drift’s biology took over. Strange lubrication surged from his valve and he felt something begin to slide downwards inside his abdomen. He found himself on his pedes and halfway to the Incubator before his gyros registered the change in position. The need to lay his clutch became a necessity hammering through his frame and out into his EMF with every desperate pulse of his Spark.

His legs were stiff and he wasn’t used to moving in this form but blind need drove him forward until he was pressed against a cool, deep-chested frame. Strong hands caught Drift as his legs threatened to give out. He leaned his forehelm on the Incubator’s sturdy collar fairing and panted through mouth and vents, curling his fingers around the edges of purple chest armour. The mech smelled of iodine and copper and Drift wanted to lick the dark plating; fill his mouth with the trace of this one that would carry his eggs and commit it to memory in case he needed to seek it out again.

Something shifted in his belly, moving steadily down.

There was no time to indulge in the drawn-out play and multiple merges that would ensure a well-sparked clutch.

His eggs were coming _now_.

Desperation brought his vocaliser back online.

“Please… you… need, _please_.” Drift rasped, tugging at the Incubator with weak, shaking hands.

They weren’t even going to make it back to the berth.

Thick ropes of slippery jelly-like lubricant slithered from the swollen opening of Drift’s valve, greasing his claspers and inner thighs as something that was almost too large began to descend through his internal passage. A shocking surge of pleasure erupted from nodes receiving their first stimulation in months.

His knees gave out, refusing to hold him upright any longer.

The Incubator caught Drift before he collapsed and lowered him gently to the floor. As Drift came back to himself he found he was draped atop that delightfully strong frame, splayed limply on cool armour as the head of whatever-it-was breached the opening of his valve, dragging a fresh surge of lubricant with it.

His claspers went mad, the four short tentacles stroking and exploring the long organ extending from where Drift’s spike and valve would normally be. Powerful claws stroked his back armour soothingly, guiding him up to his hands and knees. The Incubator’s EMF suddenly merged with his and Drift voice exploded in a wailing cry as his limbs locked, rendering him immobile. He bit out blindly, catching the edge of the Incubator’s helm in his teeth. The chassis beneath his vibrated with a rumbling purr that Drift answered automatically.

New movement commands unfurled within his processor.

Now Drift knew what to do.

He snarled and clamped down harder on his mouthful of metal, claws extending to hook around thick armour plates, gripping his mate tightly. Only when the EMF meshed with his registered complete submission and willingness did he proceed to position his ovipositor so the head came within reach of the Incubator’s own claspers. He whined with pleasure as the four slim tendrils explored the tip, spreading fresh lubricant to replace the stuff already drying and guiding his appendage to the opening at their centre.

A ripple shot from the base of Drift’s neck and down his spinal struts. He bucked his hips once in helpless reaction before laying protocols took over and froze him in place with half of his ovipositor already buried deep within his mate. The sudden thrust dragged a guttural sound of startled pleasure from the mech below him and Drift purred soothingly, drooling down the side of the Incubator’s helm. His mate was unbelievably ready, internal passage relaxed and so slippery that it effortlessly sucked the head of Drift’s ovipositor to the entrance of his gestation/maturation chamber with a few expert ripples of his callipers.

The Ovaria moaned blissfully, gnawing on his mouthful of helm with rough affection. He could feel the Incubator’s claspers caressing the exposed portion of his ovipositor along with his own, taking the lubricant oozing spasmodically from his valve and spreading it over the delicate organ to keep it from drying out.

Laying protocols had Drift firmly in their grip as the head of his ovipositor nudged the entrance of the Incubator’s internal chamber and grabbed the tight aperture of the entrance closure on the first try. Pleasure surged through his frame as the head of his ovipositor unfurled within his mate, locking them together and slowly easing the entrance of his gestation/maturation chamber open. It was slow going but by this point neither Syngnath could have resisted their coding if they tried.

Deep, thrumming growls of pleasure joined Drift’s own higher-pitched crooning as the pair of Syngnathi locked together, Drift more than ready to leave his eggs within the receptive and willing Incubator.

Slowly, slowly the first of his clutch eased its way down into his valve. His callipers rippled around the roughly ovoid shape, coaxing it down through his body and out through the conduit of his ovipositor and into his mate’s frame.

It was agony. It was bliss.

He hadn’t been able to overload and ease the symptoms of his heat so the Ovaria’s valve was exquisitely sensitive. Choked whimpers and guttural cries of lust poured from Drift as each egg dragged its way through his valve and passed slowly down his ovipositor. He shivered uncontrollably, pleasure overwhelming even his laying protocols. The uncomfortable pressure within Drift’s abdomen receded a little with each egg that passed from him to his mate; the Incubator’s Field slowly flushing with a peculiar contentment that Drift’s coding responded to with giddy satisfaction.

 _Egg-happy, egg-full. Good_.

His last egg slipped free without a fuss, internal callipers moving in now-familiar movements to push it through his valve, claspers stimulating the pseudo-musculature of his ovipositor to deliver the egg to his mate where the Incubator’s own claspers helped ease the egg inside his frame and his valve callipers cycled in the reverse of Drift’s movements, pulling the egg towards the safety of his gestation/maturation chamber. When it was inside the head of Drift’s ovipositor began to contract, helping the chamber opening slide closed again.

The Syngnathi overloaded together as the Drift’s long ovipositor began to withdraw into his frame, the Ovaria’s static-corrupted cry more than enough noise for both of them.

The processor-fogging lust that had been plaguing him gradually fading as the sensations caused by his ovipositor retracting sent wave after wave of bliss through his frame, a product of the unnaturally high level of charge generated by the drawn-out torment of his heat.

Rational thought processes began to return to Drift, one sluggish line of code at a time. His mate shifted beneath him, sitting up with Drift’s quivering frame draped over his front. The Ovaria’s denta were still clamped tightly on the larger mech’s helm. Awkwardly, Drift unclenched his jaw and licked at the indents he’d left, whining apologetically.

Heavy claws traced gently up and down his back, encouraging Drift to relax, to ignore the sticky mess of drying lubricant covering them and snuggle into his mate’s warm frame. He did so willingly, purring and tucking his helm beneath the Incubator’s chin with a sparkfelt sigh of satisfaction.

After the exertion of passing his first clutch Drift was perfectly happy to rest for a while before getting cleaned up.

_We’ve made one Pit of a mess. Good thing we’re not in a nest._

Something about the thought registered as odd in Drift’s slowly clearing processors. Memory was blurred, cache responding so slowly he began to wonder if it was damaged. Confusion filled the Ovaria and he opened his mouth, intending to ask if this was normal.

The words became a shriek as pain tore through his legs.

Processor unable to handle the sudden influx of pain data so soon after the intensity of laying Drift crashed offline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~In this Au Shockwave's coding has been severely damaged by the Functionalists and the Institute, which is why he's able to do the things he does in this fic.  
> ~During a normal heat an Ovaria would eat NaCl (Or flourine if they could get a hold of it) crystals to dull the symptoms of their heat. Drift hasn't been able to do this. Overloading also helps be he hasn't been able to do this either. This is why he was so out-of-it here and why he doesn't recognise Shockwave as anything other than an Incubator.  
> ~Ovaria normally feel the cold easily but during their cycle their frames produce a lot of excess heat, to the point that their cooling systems struggle to cool their frames. This was also exacerbated by Drift's forced immobility and inability to properly care for himself.
> 
> THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE THIS SCENE FROM WING'S POV.  
> THINGS ARE GOING DOWNHILL FROM HERE, MY SWEETPOTATOES. TIME TO ABANDON SHIP.


	9. Spectators

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wing's hosts treat him to the show of a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers the events of the previous chapter from Wing's POV.  
> Read the tags. Read them again.  
> If you can't handle what is in there don't continue reading this fic.

# Chapter Nine: Spectators

 

“Remove him to the observation room.” Shockwave instructed, dispassionately observing the writhing speedster opposite Wing. “Await my signal at the end, Myein; you will _not_ enjoy the consequences if you do not.”

The femme flicked the tall Syngnath a mocking salute, skipping over to Wing’s medical berth on her pede-tips. Fury surged through the jet and he snarled at her approach, baring his denta and daring her to come within biting range. The twisted creature giggled at him, fluttering her armour flirtatiously and ignoring the promise of violence in his Field as she blatantly ogled his painfully aroused array.

“Myein.” Shockwave’s voice was sharp and cold, his slitted optic boring into the tiny Cybertronian femme. “Remember… leave him _intact_.”

The words shocked Wing out of his rage and it changed, subsiding into the now-familiar burn in his pelvic array. He didn’t like the way Shockwave had said that particular glyph for ‘intact’ or the strange meaning his inflection gave it. Despite the renewed inferno of lust surging through Wing’s lines an icy shiver worked its way up his spinal column and Myein snickered knowingly.

Shockwave watched impassively as the femme climbed the side of Wing’s berth and shoved the jet so he tipped over sideways onto the flat surface. Climbing down again she kicked at the wheels and simply rolled the entire berth from the room.

_Wheels. It’s on wheels. How did I forget?_

The passage of air of Wing’s exposed, oversensitive equipment brought an involuntary whimper to his throat that nearly drowned him in shame. He nearly whined with relief when the berth stopped moving, the airlock door hissing shut behind them, sealing Wing and Myein in the atmosphere control chamber.

Massive fans roared and the breeze of the atmosphere being changed slid over Wing’s saturated valve and caressed his flightpanels in a way that made him start clicking, sobbing at the feeling of airflow over sensors that hadn’t known anything but the wall behind him since waking up in this Pit. Combined with the gentle stimulation of achingly primed valve sensors it was almost enough to bring the jet to overload. He managed to get control over his vocaliser before the fans shut down and for the first time in Primus only knew how long Wing cycled his vents and drew in air that was completely clear.

Not even a single molecule of Drift’s first-heat pheromones crossed Wing’s chemoreceptors.

He wanted to sob again, this time with relief.

They left the airlock while Wing was still too dazed by the feedback from his flightpanel sensors and the blessedly clean air to realise he was even moving. Distant beeping of a door’s lockpad filtered through his awareness while he cycled his vents deep and hard, desperately taking great gulps of the aerosol-free atmosphere.

“Aww, poor little jetling. Was it getting a bit stuffy for you, stuck in there with that stinky Syngnath?” Myein crooned, running mockingly gentle claws over his cheekplates. “I’m _sorry_ , Shockwave’s already given his orders for this little experiment so you’re just going to have to draw on all the knightly discipline of yours and _endure_.”

Wing was trying to parse the meaning of her words when he heard a chime and his berth was moving again. They hadn’t gone far, even without his chronometer to time the journey Wing could still figure out that much. They _had_ to be in one of the rooms beside their cell, possibly one of those with the viewing panels he and Drift couldn’t see through. From here he might be able to see what was happening to the Ovaria if Myein was kind or careless enough to position the berth so he was facing the correct wall.

Every thought was driven from his processors in a wave of pure horror was when his vents dragged in another deep draught of air and a tank-churningly familiar scent filled his chemoreceptors.

_Oh Primus, no!_

A fresh surge of arousal coursed through his frame, confirming that his vents were once again drawing in massive draughts of the chemical aerosols being produced by Drift’s frame as the Ovaria underwent his first heat.

“The atmosphere of your cell has been redirected to this room for the main event.” Myein explained cheerfully. Her plating scraped as she moved and the jet fought to keep his processor away from the image of streaks of his own white enamel decorating her frame. “ _This_ way we can track any effects it has on you as Shockwave takes care of the little monster.”

Wing reacted without thinking; verbally lashing out at the sadistic femme for the first time since she’d maimed him.

“He is _not_ a monster.”

His voice was hoarse with disuse and the increasingly violent lust burning through his frame, emerging in an animalistic growl Wing hadn’t thought he was capable of producing. Myein shivered, overlapping armour plates rasping together in a way that made Wing’s spike throb with a desire he didn’t want associated with cis captor and tormentor.

“Oh you sound _really_ hot when you use that tone of voice, flyboy.” The femme said appreciatively as she moved around his medical berth and kicked at the wheels again. “I _still_ don’t want you talking through the show, though. I would be _so disappointed_ if you ruined the experience.”

Stubbornly Wing bit his glossa, refusing to ask what she meant. Even through the waves of lust and rage muddling his processors he was still determined to thwart his captors in any way he could, no matter how petty. Myein didn’t seem to notice or care, humming under her breath as she clambered up the side of the berth again and approached him with her splay-footed walk.

Conflicting urges slammed through Wing’s mind and frame as Myein approached. He wanted to flee from the loathsome being that had maimed him and continued to torture both himself and Drift. He wanted to wrap his legs around her waist and frag the burn from his array, sate his lust with her frame until both his spike and valve were overused and raw. He wanted to tear her limb from limb and paint the walls with her innermost energon. _He_ _wanted_ …

Wing bared his denta and snarled savagely, flaring his armour and forgetting everything except the frame just out of reach and the things he wanted to do to it. His intentions were carried clearly on his EM Field and he used it to batter at the aggravatingly calm femme. Why did she not fear him? Why didn’t she come within reach? Thin civilian plating, he could probably bite through it with little effort. It would dent deliciously in his grip as she rode him, he could take one of those small hands quite easily, it was nothing compared to some of the spikes he’d taken in the past.

His vents heaved, drawing more of the maddening aerosols into his system that sent his thoughts tumbling in dizzying spirals.

“Oh my, what a _temper_.” Myein tutted at him, shaking her helm. “You know, I really _would_ love to play with you properly and see how deep that wildness goes; but we just _don’t_ have the time.” Myein cocked her helm to the side, contemplating the jet. “It’s such a shame, really. We could have so _much_ fun together.”

She came closer and Wing snapped at her, trying to sink his denta into anything he could reach. Bright plating dodged his wounded flailing effortlessly, a weight at the back of his neck trapping him against the berth. He bucked and growled, revving his turbines. Suddenly there were small, cool hands on his flightpanels.

Instantly Wing’s guttural snarls of rage turned into a moan of bliss and he all but melted.

It had been so long, so _impossibly_ long since he felt anything except his own vents and the pressure of the wall. In his desperation he forgot where he was and who was touching him. The jet almost forgot who _he_ was as he spread his flightpanels wide, whining low in his vocaliser and begging desperately for _more touch_.

Someone chuckled low in their vocaliser, one of the hands leaving his flightpanels to caress his helm crest gently while the other rubbed slow circles over hid complex shoulder joints, soothing the ache brought by weeks without flight. Wing became putty under those hands, purring and trying to press up into the touch with limbs that wouldn’t respond.

“It’s ok, jetling.” A soft voice murmured. “I’ll take care of you.”

And take care of him they did.

Slim, talented digits danced over every square inch of his flightpanels, soothing the need for touch and calling the arousal burning through his circuits out to the sensor-rich surfaces. After so long without this was too much to ask for him to hold out for long. Wing’s spike thudded uselessly against the berth as he writhed in mindless bliss, spurting across his belly as the pleasure came to a sudden, sharp peak.

His overload crested and withdrew, leaving him feeling drained and more lucid than he had been in weeks.

“Oh _Primus_.”

The words escaped Wing’s vocaliser before he could stop them, horror and self-loathing pouring through him as he registered the feeling of fresh lubricant drying on his thighs and the stickiness on his abdominal plates.

“Not Primus. Just me, sweetspark.” Myein sounded almost affectionate, lifting Wing into an upright position. “It’s good to see you back with the land of the coherent, I was beginning to think Shockwave might have misjudged the effects of unrelieved charge and we’d gone and fried your pretty little processor. It _is_ good to know that an overload can relieve the effects of the little monster’s stink.”

The Knight stayed stubbornly silent while guilt ate at him. Myein wedged him in place so he could remain upright with minimal support, facing a wall that turned out to be a one-way viewport.

He nearly choked on his vents when he saw that he had a pitilessly clear view of their cell. Apparently this room was behind the wall his berth normally occupied.

Shockwave hadn’t moved but Drift seemed to be even more frantic than before, arching and twisting as best he could and begging incoherently for something. Wing wished he couldn’t understand the few words Drift managed to say clearly. It restarted the slow burn in his pelvic structures that had only just been reduced to a smoulder. He could see everything, watching helplessly as Drift’s frame started to buckle and shift, raging internally at his own shame and helplessness as the Ovaria’s mouth opened on a scream of terror and pain.

Shockwave moved.

Lightning fast and devastatingly accurate the Incubator slashed the ropes binding Drift bare moments before the Ovaria’s frame would have torn itself apart on them. Wing sobbed with relief at the close escape and the shocked wonder painting Drift’s features. The speedster’s frame twitched and his helm rolled until slitted blue optics focused on Shockwave.

Sympathetic twinges rolled through Wing’s limbs in response to the slow, painful way Drift pushed himself up to a sitting position. The speedster had gained a fantastic amount of mass during the transformation and Wing was surprised to see just how much larger Drift was now. He was even bigger than Wing remembered from Crystal City. Impossible fantasies floated through his processor, aided by the aerosol-laden atmosphere being cycled through from their prison. Wing’s valve pulsed and clenched on nothing, spike stirring against his thigh armour.

_What would it be like to have him frag me through the wall in that form?_

Almost as soon as he’d thought it Wing felt a surge of guilt for even _considering_ fragging Drift while they were prisoners. The effects of the tactile overload Myein had dragged from his frame were fading; the lust surging again as Drift leaned forward and _growled_ , staring fixedly at Shockwave who was standing tall and proud in the middle of their cage.

Shockwave tilted his helm to fix Drift with his cycloptic stare and the pair of Syngnathi engaged in a protracted staring contest, their armour flexing and flaring subtly. Wing frowned, trying to work out what was going on. A vage shimmer in the air gave him an idea and he broadened his tried to shift optical parameters to the rages he used while storm-dancing to avoid electrical discharges created by the stormclouds. Much to his surprise, it worked.

What he saw astounded him.

The EM Fields of both Shockwave and Drift were strong enough to be nearly visible, distinct heat-shimmers in the air that were rippling and swaying in complex forms, occasionally lacing together in perfectly complementary patterns.

They never merged, never slid into a perfectly entwined harmony the way Wing expected them to. Instead, Drift and Shockwave’s Fields stayed distinctly separate, pushing and pulling and twisting against each other in a dance that looked like it was a combination of courtship and a deadly serious fight for dominance. Every time their Fields locked for even a fraction of a second both Syngnath reacted; Shockwave would treble slightly, little shivers passing over his armour while Drift moaned low in his vocaliser, hips twitching to rub his bared and swollen valve into the puddle of lubricants beneath him on the berth.

Suddenly the Syngnathi’s Fields harmonised and merged deeply, triggering an obvious overload in Drift. Waves of sympathetic arousal coursed through Wing, his spike becoming painfully hard as he watched the Ovaria overload. Drift’s valve pulsed visibly; ejecting lubricant that looked almost like it had the consistency of syrup, his spike oozing a strange clear fluid before retracting into its housing. The armour of Drift’s abdomen seemed to ripple, like there was something moving in his internals.

_Primus, his armour IS moving!_

Wing leaned forward, using the pain of his stiff, immobile limbs to control his arousal as he watched Drift’s abdomen bulge and shift. Wide-opticed with what looked like panic the speedster pushed himself up off the berth as his interfacing equipment visibly reconfigured itself. He staggered forwards and fell against Shockwave, clinging to the Decepticon’s armour with hands that had sprouted short, hooked claws from the ends of each finger.

“Please… You… need, _please_.” Despite the hoarseness of disused Drift’s voice still held the same glorious resonance Wing remembered from the few times the Ovaria had taken this form in Crystal City.

Drift’s head fell back and his mouth opened on a passionate cry that made Wing’s spike throb as thick strands of what looked like a dense, shiny jelly poured from Drift’s valve. The strange stuff slid down the speedster’s legs and his knees buckled, his faceplates wearing a look of dazed pleasure Wing had seen on mechs after several good overloads. He shouted a warning as Drift started to fall and Shockwave caught the Ovaria, draping Drift gently over his frame as the Decepticon lay on his back on the floor, apparently oblivious to the mess Drift had made.

“Well _that’s_ a good view.” Myein observed dispassionately.

For reasons Wing couldn’t comprehend Shockwave had positioned both himself and Drift so that their bared interface arrays faced the observation room the Cybertronians were in.

_Why would he do that? Is it to shock me or shame Drift?_

Shockwave’s knees were bent, pedes planted flat on the floor with Drift’s legs spread wide over the Decepticon’s comparatively slim thighs. Neither of them seemed to have a spike, although there was a strange housing at the front of Shockwave’s pelvic assembly that could have indicated the presence of a spike or something like it. There was something odd about the movements of their valves and Wing bit his glossa on a gasp when he realised that both Syngnathi had four short tentacles that seemed to emerge from locations within the multiple external folds of their valve arrays. The slim appendages wriggled in the torrents of thick lubricant Drift was producing, spreading the slimy stuff over every surface they could reach.

“Isn’t that just _gross?_ ” Myein asked, grabbing Wing’s chin in one hand and pointing at the Syngnathi’s valves with the other to make sure he knew what she was talking about. “Their _crotches_ have _tentacles._ It’s _disgusting_.”

“I’ve seen weirder mods.” Wing lied, trying to keep his tone as neutral and bored as he could in hopes that the femme would give up on verbal harassment.

Something was happening to Drift, the armour of his torso flexing and rippling in waves that started at his neck and travelled down to the top of his pelvic array. Shockwave was running his massive claws up and down Drift’s spinal column in a soothing motion that Wing didn’t like. He wanted to tear his friend from the Decepticon’s clutches and sink into Drift’s valve, discover the texture of that viscous lubricant with his spike and find out what those tentacles would feel like caressing his shaft as he pounded into Drift until they both collapsed from exhaustion.

“Ooooh you’ll have to tell me _all_ about that when we’re done here.” The femme said; her voice breaking into Wing’s fevered imaginings. “Did you know that we’re the _first_ Cybertronians to witness a Syngnathi ovipositing that _hasn’t_ been chemically induced? We’re making history! You… me… the boss and the little monster. We’re all making history _together_.”

“The only monster here is _you_.” Wing snarled, the hunger created by Drift’s pheromones and lust-drunk groans changing instantly to pure rage.

He jerked his helm from her grip and twisted, snapping his denta closed around the tip of a finger and biting down hard enough to crush the delicate metal, annihilating any internal mechanisms between his denta and her endoskeletal struts.

A brief stab of pain shot through the femme’s EMF and then she started laughing.

Further enraged by her laughter Wing growled and jerked his helm, trying to pull Myein close enough to get another mouthful. Processed energon and his own oral solvents ran down his chin to join the mess of ejaculate splattered on his abdomen. Somewhere in the distance Drift was wailing but right now that was secondary to the need to inflict pain. Myein just continued laughing, playing tug-of-war with Wing until she apparently grew bored of it and casually grabbed one of his flared cheekpieces with her free hand, twisting it hard enough to make him cry out and let go of her finger.

“ _Ah, ah a-ah_.” The femme scolded in an irritating singsong, waving her bitten finger in Wing’s faceplates. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s not playtime until _after_ the show.”

Driven beyond rational thought by the effects of Drift’s pheromones on top of weeks of immobility and tube-feeding Wing lunged again despite the hand still gripping his cheekpiece. Myein used her grip to control his lunge and guide him effortlessly down so he came to rest with his helm in her lap, cheek resting on the bright armour of her thighs with his optics turned towards the sight of the two Syngnathi connected by a lubricant-covered white-and-grey appendage that could only be Drift’s ovipositor. Wing’s rage became a powerful lust that pounded through his frame as Drift’s ovipositor inched deeper into Shockwave, impaling the Decepticon with what was a very impressive length. Every time a fresh section emerged from Drift it was accompanied by more of that lubricating jelly, Drift producing so much it was a wonder he hadn’t completely dehydrated by now.

The jet’s valve ached with envy, optics devouring the sight before him. There was a hand petting his helm. That was nice, but he wanted it elsewhere. His valve was empty and if he couldn’t have what Shockwave was getting he’d happily take a few fingers instead.

The Syngnathi were crooning now, the sound rising and falling in waves, vibrating through Wing’s frame until he felt like he would fly apart at the seams if he didn’t get fragged soon. His own desperate, needy whine joined the harmony of the mating mechs as he drooled helplessly, twitching his hips in an attempt to get something, _anything_ to touch him. A hand on his spike or in his valve, he needed another’s hands on him to ground him before he went mad.

His desperation only grew as he saw Drift’s valve ripple and move, something pressing the folds apart from the inside. A bulge formed in Drift’s ovipositor where is emerged from his valve, the short tentacles massaging the bulge  and coaxing what could only be an egg to exit the Ovaria and journey into the receptive mech impaled on the other end. When the egg finally slipped free of Drift it brought a fresh surge of that thick jelly with it, the shiny stuff running in streams down the ovipositor, making the slow-moving bulge of the egg extremely obvious. Even without the chemical aerosols affecting Wing’s systems this was hands-down one of the hottest things he’d ever seen and he whimpered helplessly, consumed by envy and lust.

Shockwave’s low purring formed a bass counterpoint to Drift’s blissful moans as he emptied himself one egg at a time, slowly filling the Decepticon with his unsparked brood. From the sounds Drift was making he was so aroused by now that he should have had loose charge crawling over his plating but there was nothing so far as Wing could tell. The Ovaria’s biolights were blazing though, bright enough to leave afterimages in Wing’s visual feed as his optical input programs struggled to compensate for the glare.

Another egg crawled slowly down the organ connecting the Syngnathi and Wing groaned low in his chassis as Shockwave’s tentacles identified the incoming bulge and coaxed it inside his frame, external valve folds spreading and straining over the widest part, the whole area shining with Drift’s lubricant.

“Found yourself a new kink, I see.” An amused voice came from somewhere above Wing, probably the owner of the small hand petting his helm. Wing nodded, unable to tear his optics from the sight of Drift and Shockwave overloading in tandem with the gleaming length of Drift’s ovipositor strung between them.

They Syngnathi were a complete mess, Drift shivering and whining and drooling onto the mech beneath him, Shockwave’s strong arms with their heavy claws locked tightly behind the Ovaria’s back. Streams of that strange jelly straggled from Drift’s valve, coating the nether regions of both mechs and pooling on the floor beneath them.

“Well, it looks like that’s that then.”

Two small hands stroked Wing’s helm, the femme behind him leaning forwards to get a better view. Wing didn’t blame her, Drift’s ovipositor was retracting and the Ovaria was shaking and wailing through a cascade of overloads, so beautiful Wing almost forgot the ache of unrelieved lust in his own frame as he drank in the sight. He fought the effects of the heat aerosols long enough to take an image capture of in as high a resolution as he could manage.

_When we get out of here we could have that._

Wing swore to Primus that they would get out, they would escape this place. They would find that other Incubator Drift had talked about. They would go back to Crystal City and together they would ensure Drift’s second heat _more_ than made up for his first.

A slim arm moved to cradle Wing’s helm, heedless of the mix of energon and oral fluids covering the lower part of his faceplates. A vague sensation of worry rose in Wing’s cortex as too-gentle fingertips slid towards his optics.

“Lights out, little Knight.” Myein crooned.

Unhindered by her bitten and useless fingertip the femme drove her thumbs into Wing’s optics, shattering the yellow lenses and punching through to crush the delicate mechanisms behind them. Charge that had been snapping across his plating rushed towards the site of injury, intensifying the agony a thousand times over. His vocaliser glitched and failed when he tried to scream. Wing twitched uselessly, attempting to twist away as Myein hummed and worked her thumbs deeper into his optics, twisting viciously, methodically destroying his optical mechanisms beyond the ability of his frame to salvage through self-repair.

Mouth stretched wide in a silent wail of agony the Knight pleaded with Primus for the oblivion of a shutdown that wouldn’t come.

Somewhere in the distance, Drift screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now begin our steady descent into the Pit.  
> Abandon hope all ye who enter here.


	10. Remission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are the toys too broken to be interesting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by an anonymous coffee-thrower and ['Clubbed to Death'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFS4zYWxzNA)
> 
> Not sure how good this one is going to be. I'm really crook atm >.

# Chapter Ten: Remission     

 

Wing wasn't sure how long he screamed.

Time had lost all meaning.

Pain eddied and flowed through his frame, the no-directionless charge of aborted arousal amplified the sensation until it was all the Knight knew. It was the totality of his newly darkened existance. Familiar aches from gutted hydraulics in thighs and arm joined and amplified by fresh agony that sang brightly, radiating out from wounded optic housings. Somewhere over the multifaceted pain flooding his sensornet Wing thought he could hear shouting.

Drift’s voice.

Drift shouting.

He clung to the sound, a thin thread of sanity in an insane universe. The hoarse torrent of obscenities coming from the Ovaria was somehow comforting despite the sure knowledge that they were in reaction to some sort of injury. That pained cry earlier couldn’t have been from anything else.

But if Drift was shouting he was still fighting. Wing clung desperately to the sound of Drift’s voice, using it the same way he would use a mantra to focus during meditation or endurance trials.

_Focus. Breathe. Think._

Pushing back the pain in order to function seemed like an impossible task. His helm was radiating fire and shards of diamond-sharp pain shot through his neural net. They gathered around the wounds Myein had made when laming him, settling in and magnifying the old pain.

Talons returned to his faceplates and Wing tried to jerk his helm away.

The move was anticipated and countered, Myein clamping the jet’s helm between her thighs to hold him still.

A dumb animal sound of fear oozed from Wing’s vocaliser against his will as the femme’s claws moved about in his ruined sockets, delicately removing fragments of shattered glass and loose pieces of metal. Somehow Wing knew that in the future he would remember making that noise and feel shame for whining like a mechanimal beneath this tiny sadist, but at that moment the knowledge was dim and unimportant.

The only thing that mattered right now was his tormentor.

His world was reduced to Myein; her thighs against his helm holding him still, her voice humming a nauseatingly happy tune and her claws, her _claws_. Claws that had robbed him of both mobility and sight, claws that were now rummaging around in the holes where his optics used to be, dangerously close to his brain module. One little slip and the femme could bring him so much more pain.

Or end him for good.

_Oh Primus, Primus please._

Wing prayed without knowing what he was asking for. Did he want to be spared further damage or to have Myein slip and end it right now?

He didn’t know.

The not-knowing chilled his Spark.

Myein seemed to be taking extreme care not to cause further damage as she removed debris from Wing’s latest injuries. It was somehow more disturbing than the blinding itself. Violence was expected; this tenderness was not.

_Why is she doing this to me?_

Eventually it ended. Eventually Myein found all the loose pieces she’d created and sprayed Wing’s ruined optics with something that stung like acid rain. Wing whimpered as Myein bent closer, her frame radiating heat against his faceplates as the femme inspected her handiwork.

“I think that’ll do for now, little Knight.”

A sticky hand stroked Wing’s bent cheekpiece in a twisted parody of kindness and the pressure of armour against his helm vanished. Air moved across his frame, arousal and pain making every square inch of his plating hypersensitive.

Pedesteps circled the berth and fresh pain exploded through his helm as the slab beneath him jolted several times then shuddered into motion. Clean air barely registered, the airlocks simply one more torture to endure as wind howled across his brutalised optical sockets. There were voices, distant and unimportant.

He could still hear Drift.

Wing’s berth seemed to drop out from underneath him. For one eternal, blissful millisecond he hung suspended in space, nothing but air around his frame. Then he was falling and wailing with loss, leashed and collared by cruel gravity that pulled him down until his backplates met the berth again with a shock that stopped his vents.

_Give it back. I_ need _it. Give it back!_

Wing tried to push himself up, tried to power up his turbines so he could get back into the air. He twitched and sucked air through nacelles that refused to intake enough oxygen to ignite, screamed at fans that wouldn’t spin fast enough to reach anything like the velocity required for take-off.

Nothing he tried would get him airborne.

It was useless.

Grounded, the jet sobbed in despair. His armour rippled, blinded helm thrashing from side to side with enough force to further damage his cheekpieces. It hurt. Everything hurt. There was no difference between one pain and the next; it all flowed through his system on a wave of unreleased charge that melded them all into one hellish torrent.

He was too far gone in his misery to notice the change in air currents warning of another frame close to his. The backs of battle-roughened fingers brushed the sticky metal of Wing’s cheeks, a familiar touch accompanied by the tentative pressure of a familiar Field that tried futilely to protect him from his own pain.

“ _Drift?_ ”

The sound Wing made was barely a word, barely even the squeak of stripped gears sliding over one-another. Somehow the familiar one knew what he was trying to say.

“It’s me, it’s Drift.”

Familiar but different, new layers to the voice that matched the changes in the familiar Field, but it was still his friend, still _Drift_. Wing wanted to cry but he couldn’t. Whatever substance Myein had sprayed into his optics sealed the lubricant ducts as well as any severed fluid lines. Drops of warm liquid hit his faceplates anyway, soaking into half-dried energon and leaving cooling trails across his dermal metal.

Drift was crying for both of them.

“Drift, are you…” He was trying to ask if the Ovaria was alright but the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck in his vocaliser. Trapped behind fear and screams.

“I’m ok.”

Drift’s words didn’t match his Field. He was lying.

Right now Wing didn’t care about the truth so long as Drift didn’t let go.

So long as Drift kept stroking Wing’s cheekplates with gentle fingertips and anchoring the jet to reality the speedster could tell as many lies as he wanted to. If the touch stopped Wing feared he would get lost in pain and ground-panic and right now he didn’t know if he would want to come back. Madness was beginning to seem more welcoming than his current reality.

“Well, I’ll _be_ ok.” Drift corrected himself with obvious guilt and Wing felt the irrational urge to laugh. “I’m gonna be pretty weak for a while. Good news is they’ve gotten what they want from me. Shockwave won’t see me as a threat while I’m recovering, at least. He didn’t even tie me back up, the lazy slagheap.”

Wing didn’t want to ask, but he needed clarification.

He couldn’t handle not knowing. Again.

“Recovering?”

“It takes a lot out of you. Making the eggs and… and transferring them.” Drift’s voice was subdued; his Field more distant than it had been in a long time. Wing reached out for it with his own and Drift responded with an attempt at humour. “A bit of recharge and some of that nutritious tube sludge from our hosts and I’ll be fine before you know it.”

Strong hands tilted Wing’s helm towards the Ovaria, the change in position setting off a fresh wave of pain. Drift hissed through his denta, an ominous growl rising from his engine as he took his time examining the damage done to Wing’s optics. Even blind as he now was the Knight had no trouble picturing the savage expression that would be on Drift’s faceplates to accompany the pulse of violence in his Field.

“I’m going to kill that sparkless drone.” The Ovaria snarled. “Vicious, _useless_ piece of scraplet bait. She’s going to regret the day Unicron spat her out of the Pit.”

Suddenly Drift’s arms were around him, hauling the limp jet off the berth and into a hug, pressing him against Drift’s augmented Syngnathi form. It was recognisable and strange. Drift’s engine and Field were mostly the same, scaled up and filled with additional harmonics he’d heard before in Crystal City. The underlying scent of the mech was still there too but the armour was very different; angles altered, planes broader and curving far beyond where Wing expected them to end. He tried to return the embrace and failed, damaged limbs twitching uselessly.

Carefully, oh-so-carefully Drift laid them both back down on the berth. Wing could feel the Ovaria’s sticky armour and his own plating clamped down before flaring to release extra heat when images of what caused that stickiness poured through his processor.

Drift lay on his side, draping one of Wing’s arms across his frame and lacing the fingers of their free hands together in the tiny space between their bodies. The jet’s flightpanels twitched freely in empty air, skimming against the wall.

_He’s between me and the door_.

Wing relaxed minutely, his vocaliser activating without his consent.

“I’ve missed this.” The Knight’s words whispered helplessly against Drift’s neck cables.

He meant the touch, the hug, the simple comfort of having his friend beside him.

“Me too.”

Drift’s admission was just as soft, just as vulnerable.

The lay for an incalculable amount of time, ventilations slowing and engines idling as stillness brought the Knight’s pain down to a manageable level. Both of their frames ran warm from self-repair, heating the air around Wing until he was almost comfortable. He focused on anything and everything he could feel passing over the sensors of his wings in an attempt to squash his fear of being stuck on the ground forever.

_Don’t think about that right now. Rest._

At some point the darkness of non-existent optics became the early stages of recharge and Wing threw himself into it gladly. It was the closest thing to escape he could imagine and he welcomed it with open arms.

_Maybe… maybe I’ll dream of flying_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> ~Drift and Wing have never 'hooked up' in this AU.  
> ~Wing has seen Drift's Syngnath form enough to be sort-of familiar with how it changes.  
> ~Drift is trying really, really hard to put on a brave face right now and Wing is a bit too messed up to notice or call him on it.
> 
> They're getting a chapter or two of respite while Shockers prepares the next round of entertainment for his guests. Then it's all straight down into hell.


	11. Liberties Earned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conditions of Wing and Drift’s confinement are improving but the jet’s mental state is crumbling fast.

# Chapter Eleven : Liberties Earned

 

Drift curled himself around Wing, putting his larger and more heavily-armoured frame between the jet and the door despite knowing that Knights had stronger armour than a civilian of similar frametype. Drift still had a fair amount of his battle-grade plating, as well as the extra thickness of his Syngnathi form.

_Not that it helped much._

Shockwave knew him too well. Knew the strengths and weaknesses of their kind in general as well as Drift’s frame in particluar; the recent rebuild hadn’t even slowed him down when he decided to attack. It would have surprised Drift if Shockwave _hadn’t_ known him that well, given how much time they’d spent together before the Ovaria joined Turmoil’s unit.

_He was waiting, anticipating this. I was hoping for it… but not like this._

It was hard to concentrate. Drift was exhausted, frame noticeably depleted despite all the extra nutrition Myein had been pouring into his feeding tube for the last… however long it had been. Drift _thought_ he’d known what to expect after laying, Shockwave had made sure the Ovaria knew what would happen to his frame if he ever matured.

It was worse than he’d ever thought possible.

Recharge was calling. If he couldn’t refuel right away at least he could rest. Even without HUD access Drift could tell the unusual drain was confusing his self-repair systems. Energon and hydraulic fluid trickled slowly down his thighs, joining the mess of lubricants drying on his armour. The wounds would be slow to close and slower to heal, but at least Shockwave was as meticulous with the injuries as he had been with everything else so far. They felt like clean cuts, Shockwave aiming for the least amount of damage to achieve his goal instead of the horrific mess he could have made of Drift’s frame.

_Efficient as usual, eh Shockwave?_

Memory replay ambushed Drift right on the edge of recharge.

 _Overloading endlessly/frame tired and sated/ovipositor leaving the Incubator’s passage, claspers stroking/something_ wrong _/shock of claws driving between the plates of his thigh armour/painpainstopPAIN_

The Ovaria shuddered uncontrollably, remembering how the blissful processor-blank haze of laying had shattered into a thousand agonizing pieces as Shockwave pierced his protoform with sharp talons, heading straight for the feeds to Drift’s thigh actuators. With almost surgical precision the Incubator had punctured the casings to allow hydraulic fluid to drain, leaving the inner chambers dangerously dry and severing the refill lines so Drift wouldn’t be able to rely on the reservoirs in his frame to refill them over time or use external methods to refill them.

Even _then_ he might still have been able to force himself to walk. Primus knew he’d fought _and won_ hundreds of fights with worse than this slowing him down.

So Shockwave hamstrung him.

Drift had thought it was an accident, the way his main tensor cables caught and dragged over Soundwave’s claws in an agonising internal scrape of _wrongwrongwrong_. The flash of purely academic satisfaction in the rich EMF told him otherwise, his overly-sharp sensors picking it up clearly despite the pain shrieking through him and the swell of instinctive horror any speedster felt when faced with hobbles.

Then / _snap_ / and his world fell apart long enough for Shockwave to untangle himself from Drift and get himself out of reach. He wasn’t out of audial range so Drift had told Shockwave _exactly_ what he would do to the Incubator if he ever got his claws on the older Syngnath.

 _I’m_ going _to kill him for this_. _Slowly_.

That was an injury Drift would not be recovering from on his own but for now he was keeping it from Wing. He would find out soon enough.

Once again, their escape was dependant on Shockwave’s questionable mercy and the extremely slim chance of him fragging up. Drift was mildly surprised that his coding hadn’t reacted to the thought of killing Shockwave, the Incubator who currently held Drift’s eggs. Eggs which may or may not be alive. Those overloads had been powerful enough that they might have thrown off enough to create a protospark even though Drift had kept his chestplates firmly sealed.

He should be feeling sick at the thought.

_Sick… Whatever the council did to Shockwave fragged him up beyond all hope. He shouldn’t have been able to hurt me then, but he did. If they damaged him that badly… it’s_ _my job to… to put him down._

Something shifted and clicked into place within Drift’s code, strongly enough to almost feel like a physical thing. Instead of horror, resignation filled him when he accepted the fact that he’d have to kill his one-time mentor.

It wasn’t just about revenge, not any more. There was no way of knowing how far Shockwave would go and how much harm he could bring to the universe as a whole, let alone his fellow Syngnathi and their Cybertronian relatives.

 _He needs to be stopped_.

In his current state Drift knew he wouldn’t be able to take Shockwave out. Not injured and weak from laying as he was. Not unless he got very, very lucky.

He would need time, rest and fuel to recover. The war had taught Drift a lot about his frame’s limits when it came to functioning with an injury, and from the way his legs felt he wasn’t confident about recovering the use of them without surgery. It was hard to know for sure without looking, but he could check later. They would have plenty of time. Drift’s frame felt numb and heavy, shock setting in with a vengeance as the last threads of heat coding finished running and shut down, letting his processor catch up with reality.

 _Don’t think. Rest_.

He pressed Wing’s helm closer to his chestplates, closer to his, trying to shelter the Knight with his frame and Field. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do. Drift couldn’t bear to look into the ruined craters that had been Wing’s optics, fixing his gaze on the blank wall at the Knight’s back and letting honest recharge claim him for the first time in weeks.

Wing’s voice woke Drift, saying his name softly.

Drift came up out of recharge as if he was emerging from deep water, noting a strange taste in his mouth and questing out with his Field to discover what was going on before his optics and vocaliser came online. A flash of revulsion and pure terror ripped through Wing’s EMF, the Knight trying to flinch away from Drift.

Field snapping back to his frame, Drift surged back to full consciousness before Wing managed to control his reaction, the Ovaria’s overly-sharp EM sensors catching and analysing nuances the jet probably wasn’t even aware of. His reaction to Drift’s EMF was involuntary, Spark-deep, etched in and reinforced by extended experience.

It took Drift a few moments to work out what could have caused it.

When he did he wanted to die of shame.

 _Humiliation/apology/self-loathing_ spread through Wing’s Field and Drift reached out instinctively to soothe his friend, humming low in his vocaliser as he cradled the back of Wing’s helm in one hand to keep the Knight from jarring his injuries again. He reached out with his EMF again, keeping the harmonics as Cybertronian as he could despite being in his true form. Slowly Wing relaxed, fans working to cool his stressed systems.

 “Wing?”

“Sorry.”

The Knight’s unsteady voice showed just how close he was to cracking.

“Don’t be. Wing, please don’t be sorry. You’ve got _nothing_ to be sorry for.” Drift was firm pressing his conviction into the Knight’s ragged EMF, stroking Wing’s cheek with his thumb, forcing himself to look at his friend’s haggard faceplates and the gore-encrusted holes where yellow optics should have been. “I should have thought first, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry for doing that to you. I’m so, so sorry.”

Wing was frowning, opening his mouth to reply when the airlock hissed open and he recoiled, armour slicking down as close to his protoform as it could go, Field pulled in so tightly that if it wasn’t for the faint hum of his systems the jet could have been mistaken for a corpse.

“Well, aren’t you two just the _cutest_ sight in the galaxy.”

Just hearing Myein’s voice had the same effect on Drift’s frame as if the femme had shoved a live mains powerline into the base of his helm.

Pure terror and the drive to _defend_ sent energy Drift didn’t know he possessed surging through his limbs. He flared his armour despite the urge to protect his protoform, curling his arms around Wing and turning his helm to glare up at the sadist standing over them.

Drift was startled by the angry snarl that burst from his frame, but Myein’s reaction was revealing. She took a step backwards as his EMF responded properly to his conscious direction for the first time in weeks, slamming outwards to hammer her with a hurricane of _rage/destroy/hate/kill_. The speedster took vicious satisfaction in being able to intimidate her, to make the femme back off even though he _knew_ she would retaliate to appease her wounded pride. He growled, revving his engine threateningly just to make Myein edge backwards again. Drift let his intentions show in his optics, pressing the promise of violence into her Field.

 _I will rip her innards out and give Wing her Sparkchamber for a trophy_.

“You know what, freak?” Myein hissed, holding up two cubes glowing the same distinctive colour their feeding pouches had been. “For that, you lose your fuel. _Both_ of you. Think about _that_ next time you feel like acting all tough.”

Moving too quickly for it to be anything other than a rout, Myein darted for the door, running on the ends of her elongated toepieces. The Ovaria kept growling until the airlock door closed, cutting him off from the target of his wrath.

“Drift?”

Wing’s voice punctured the rage and pulled Drift back to reality. He looked down at Wing, tanks flipping over with guilt. The Knight was injured and in pain and now he would be going hungry on top of that.

_Because of me._

“I’m sorry Wing, looks like I pissed off the waiter.” His attempt at humour fell flat, Wing’s Field still pulled too close to his frame to sense.

“That… What did she want?”

There was something off about the Knight’s reactions. Drift took one of the limp hands in his own and rubbed a thumb soothingly over cool plating, trying to figure out what was going on in Wing’s processors. Wing didn’t seem to have heard anything that had been said from the instant he shut down, when he realised Myein was in the room.

 “Feeding time.”

“Oh.” The jet thought about it for a bit. “Did she leave the pouches?”

Because he could, Drift brought Wing’s hand up to rest across the jet’s cockpit, finally noticing the absence of something that _should_ have been there.

 _The feeding tubes are gone_.

“No,” The Ovaria said, trying to keep Wing present while his own sluggish processors struggled to make sense of the situation. The strange taste on the back of his glossa and the puzzling absence of their tubes drifted through his mind until they connected with the image of Myein refusing him the cubes of fuel.

_That slagger brought us proper cubes, didn’t she?_

“They went to all the effort of knocking us out, removing the feeding tubes and putting us right back how we were, so I don’t think they’re about to let us starve just yet.” Drift said aloud, making sure whatever microphones Shockwave had installed could pick up his words. “Shockwave probably has something else he wants to do.”

The airlock cycled open and Wing’s plating trembled as he retreated inside himself again. Drift tried to provide a better shield for his friend until a too-familiar voice stopped him.

“That is correct, Drift.”

Shockwave stood just inside the closed airlock door, cubes of fuel in his hands.

Drift eyed the Incubator coldly, probing savagely at Shockwave’s EMF. It gave way before him and he bared his denta, trying to get a decent read on the mech.

“As you cooperated you have regained the freedom to fuel yourselves normally from now on.” The Incubator stooped, placing the two cubes of fuel on the floor. “The privilege will be revoked if you act out. I would advise against antagonising my assistant again.”

Shockwave’s lone optic skewered Drift with an unreadable stare. For some unknown reason he stopped avoiding Drift’s aggressive EMF projections, letting the Ovaria do as he wished.

The Decepticon’s Field was oddly flat and dead for an Incubator who had recently received what Drift recalled as being a rather large number of eggs. There should have been some difference, Drift was sure of it. Something he felt driven to search for and failed to find no matter how hard he probed.

 _He really_ is _a monster_.

Ignoring Drift’s continued attempts to analyse his Field, Shockwave turned and left. The glow of the cubes he left on the floor beckoned to Drift, his depleted frame demanding fuel. He looked down at the nearly catatonic jet in his arms; Wing’s faceplates were frozen in a mask of mute horror and his ventilation system was barely cycling.

“Wing?”

No response.

“Wing? It’s me. It’s Drift. You’re safe, he’s gone.”

He extended his Field as far as he could, brushing the very edge of the Knight’s Spark with purely Cybertronian harmonics. Life returned to Wing’s frame with an explosive shudder and his vents roared to life, dumping stress-born heat.

“Drift?” Wing reached out with his Field, seeking confirmation and reassurance.

Drift gave it without hesitation, pressing his forehelm to the jet’s and gazing into his ruined optics.

“It’s me, I’m here.”

“Why was _he_ here?”

“Brought us dinner. You gonna be ok if I go and get it? It’s proper cubes this time, not tube sludge.”

Drift waited with patience he didn’t know he had while Wing struggled with the obvious. Drift would have to leave him unprotected and alone while he got the fuel, otherwise both of them would go hungry.

Eventually Wing nodded.

“Go get it, I’ll wait here.” There was the barest trace of self-deprecating humour in the Knight’s voice and the ghost of a smile crossed his faceplates.

Even though the jet couldn’t see him Drift beamed in response, squeezing Wing’s hand.

 “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere without me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> ~Mystere/Myein never got over that old sparklinghood fear of Syngnathi so she is proper scared of Drift and Shockwave. Drift she sees as more feral and less of a known quantity, finds his reactions and motivations less easy to predict than Shockwave's.  
> ~Wing is now completely freaked out by Syngnathi EMF harmonics.


	12. Fraying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The need to escape becomes increasingly urgent as Wing's mental state deteriorates faster than anyone anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It felt like every word of this chapter was bought with blood and I'm pissed off that it hasn't come out longer.  
> I also feel like it's awkward as hell but I've fought it for /months/ and I give up.

# Chapter Twelve: Fraying

Wing listened fixedly to the sounds Drift made as the speedster crawled over to where Shockwave had left their fuel. There was something a little off about the Ovaria’s movements but the promise of fuelling normally drove everything else out of his head.

 _Real_ _fuel_.

Actual proper cubes of liquid fuel, fuel that Wing would take into his mouth and swallow instead of being forced into his tanks through a tube. Primus only knew how long it had been since the last time Wing fuelled naturally.

It felt like forever.

It also seemed to be taking Drift forever to fetch the cubes.

Impatience surged within Wing and he fought the desire to ask Drift to hurry up. Their cell wasn’t _that_ big, after all. It felt like it had been a small eternity since the warm frame of his friend had been wrapped protectively around the Knight, even though he knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes at most.

Resisting the urge to reach out with his Field, Wing struggled with growing terror and the desire to beg Drift to hurry up, biting down on his glossa hard enough to draw energon.

Cold and alone and blind, wounded and grounded, Wing listened for all he was worth to the sounds filling the small room; focusing on audial input to keep from screaming.

The sound of Wing’s own systems combined with that of the atmospheric filtration and circulation system of their cell to create a familiar backdrop hum. Over that, Drift’s occasional wheezes of pain were clearly audible. Wing knew those noises very well; he’d heard them often during the early days of throwing the ex-Decepticon all over the training room.

 _Drift… is hurting. And he doesn’t want me to know._ Why?

He could also hear an intermittent scraping and creaking, almost as if the Ovaria was using his arms to drag himself across the floor in some grotesque parody of a crawl. The mental image sparked something; a memory file garbled by pain and too-high charge flashing through Wing’s processors, almost fooling him into thinking he could see again.

 _Something happened. What was it? What did Shockwave_ do _to him afterwards?_

The creak-scrape noises stopped.

There was shuffling and then they resumed, coming closer as Drift returned to where Wing lay crippled and helpless. The berth shifted beneath the jet as Drift pulled himself onto it.

“I’m back.” The Ovaria said unnecessarily, his voice harsh with suppressed pain. “Did you miss me?”

It was obviously supposed to be a joke but Wing didn’t - _couldn’t-_ laugh; couldn’t even try.

He _had_ missed Drift, even for that short space of time.

Every passing second brought home to Wing just how helpless he was now, how dependant he now was on Drift. The speedster carefully pulled Wing into his lap, helped him sit propped against the Ovaria’s larger frame. Helplessness and impotent fury burned out almost as fast as they came, replaced by guilt when Drift flinched.

_That wasn’t aimed at you._

He opened his mouth to apologise for the slip and felt the familiar plasmatic tingle of an energon cube’s forcefield as Drift held a fuel ration to his lipplates, silencing him with a wordless pulse of _understanding/acceptance_.

Drift’s EM Field was a solid, comforting presence around the Knight but Wing could feel hints of barely-concealed hunger and strut-deep exhaustion that the Ovaria wasn’t hiding very well, obviously more concerned about keeping the peculiar resonance of his species under tight control. Wing was moments from piercing the seal with his denta and slurping the fuel down as fast as he could when something clicked into place and he hesitated.

_I’m dead weight. A pile of scrap with a Spark in it. They’re going to use me to keep Drift compliant, use me to keep him here even though he promised…_

“Come on, flyboy. I’m sure the fuel is safe.” Drift murmured encouragingly, “They wouldn’t poison us, not if they want to keep me as breeding stock.” The speedster obviously wasn’t thinking about what he was saying as he continued blithely, “Leaving the cubes there like that they’ve got no way of controlling which ones we drink.”

Wing couldn’t control his reaction. His Field all but exploded, roaring out of control with a flood of dismay that seemed to stun Drift.

“No, no Drift they _can’t_. They can’t do that. You have to get out, _please_.” The jet babbled, twisting his torso in Drift’s arms, heedless of the pain it the movement caused. “Leave me, leave me here and go. _You can’t let them do that to you_.”

The cube disappeared from Wing’s lipplates and then Drift was turning him in his arms, holding the jet to his larger frame, pressing Wing’s faceplates into the crook of his neck and wrapping him in a Field filled with so much steely determination it was impossible for it to be fake.

“I won’t Wing. I promise.” Drift’s voice was low, multilayered and almost musical as he spoke. “I _promise_. They will die slowly and in pain long before that could happen.”

Despite the uneasiness still lurking in his Spark Wing let himself believe the speedster; let himself be soothed and carefully hand-fed one slow sip at a time. Remembering Drift’s comments about tempering Wing insisted that they both consume half of each of the cubes, so that if only one had been tampered with then they’d only get half the intended dosage.

Of course if _both_ had been drugged it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but Drift humoured him by not pointing it out and following Wing’s instructions anyway.

When their tanks were full and both cubes empty Wing heard the faint buzzing _pop_ of the cubes’ plasma membranes being dissipated and Drift settled on the berth beside him again, a warm and reassuring presence in the darkness that had become Wing’s world.

Something about Drift’s strangely clumsy movements and a muffled hiss of pain alarmed the injured Knight.

“Drift, did he do something to you?” Wing asked, desperate to be able to see or at least _touch_ the speedster to tell for himself.

Drift had never been good about telling the truth when he was injured or tired or hungry, after all.

There was a long pause, then Drift sighed and Wing felt the large hand of Drift’s Syngnathi form brush across his cheek in an achingly gentle caress.

“He did something to my legs.” Drift admitted quietly, the sheer fact that he seemed to be being truthful was irrationally frightening to Wing. “I’ve fought with worse, but I don’t think I’ll be able to use my wheels until this is sorted out.”

Another long silence as Wing absorbed what Drift had just told him, the speedster’s Field roiled uncomfortably against his.

“I think it would be best if I stayed in my real shape for now.” Drift said reluctantly. “More of me to shield you with if the crazy bitch tried to have another go, and I’ll have my claws. They haven’t done anything to my arms yet.”

The mental image of Drift’s short, curved claws slicing into thin civilian plating gave Wing a very un-Knightly surge of vicious satisfaction.

“More of you to snuggle, too.” The jet added, accepting Drift’s decision and trying to lighten the situation. “And I don’t have to share. Remind me to tip the hotel staff.”

That startled a short bark of laughter from Drift’s vocaliser and to Wing’s relief he responded to the unspoken plea by pulling Wing close and folding his larger frame around the jet. The change in position bared more of Wing’s flightpanels to air in their cell and he shuddered, suddenly _needing_ to fire his turbines and take flight.

_Need sky need air need NEED TO FLY._

### ~V~V~V~

One moment Wing was calm and then his frame went rigid in Drift’s arms. The jet’s face was a rictus of suffering, a strangled keening sound muffled behind clenched denta. Shoulder turbines heated dangerously against Drift’s armour as Wing repeatedly initiated and aborted the firing sequence.

“Wing? What’s wrong?”

No response.

The shuddering and keening continued, intensifying with every second that passed. Drift’s brooding code had been lurking since he withdrew from Shockwave, now it woke with a vengeance and latched on to the distressed Knight and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Against his better judgement Drift wrapped his arms around the Knight and rolled onto his back, baring white flightpanels fully to the air and tucking Wing’s helm beneath his chin. Wing jerked spasmodically, his flightpanels extending and locking into position. They trembled in a way Drift hadn’t seen before.

“Wing _please_ , tell me what’s wrong.” Drift was begging now, not caring who heard.

 _I_ can’t _lose him. Not now, not like_ this.

Eventually the shuddering subsided, the horrible keening sound fading with it until Wing was silent and limp.

“Wing?”

“Ground-madness.” Wing’s sounded broken, defeated, so completely unlike the vibrant Knight Drift knew that he felt his Spark flicker and dim within its chamber. “It’s starting. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to fight it.”

Drift knew that was nothing he could do, no words a grounder could say that wouldn’t come across badly. Spark aching, Drift nuzzled the top of Wing’s helm and sighed with a long cycling of his vents, the air of their cell tasting sweet and vaguely dusty as it passed over his chemoreceptors.

_Atmosphere filters must need a change._

“Rest, Wing,” He murmured, tightening his arms around his friend’s shivering frame. “Just rest.”

He got a wordless murmur in reply; tension leaving Wing’s armour as he obeyed. Lethargy crept over Drift, growing stronger with every slow cycle of his vents. Deciding it would be a good idea to follow his own advice he cuddled Wing closer and let unconsciousness claim him.

When Drift woke he recognised the taste on his glossa, grimacing at the musty-sweet aftertaste of the gas. He twitched when he realised that he was clean, all traces of dried lubricant removed from his plating. More systems came online as he cycled up, something about the position of his frame jolting him into full alertness.

Someone had arranged their frames in an exact mirror of close huddle they’d been in when passing out.

 _Mind games_.

Wing was already awake, shivering wordlessly against him. The panic from before was back, smothered but still recognisable, rasping at Drift until he brought his own Field under control. It wasn’t until he had ruthlessly stamped out every trace of Syngnathi harmonics that the jet relaxed with a quiet sob of relief.

Crooning low in his throat, Drift tried to push his own guilt aside so that he could soothe the jet as Wing broke down and wept onto his chestplates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try to get this beast on a weekly update schedule until it's done. We're about halfway or 2/3rds of the way through and I want this thing DONE so I have Officially Finished A Long Thing. We'll see how it goes.


	13. Flashfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drift really should look gift horses in the mouth.

# Chapter Thirteen: Flashfire

 

Three feedings after Wing broke down in his arms Drift woke from a normal recharge cycle to find the jet purring and nuzzling him, frame warm and Field flushed with arousal.

Not entirely awake, Drift responded to Wing’s arousal with interest. Purring a harmony to Wing’s vocalisations, Drift slid his arms around the jet and drew Wing against him, just barely remembering to modulate his Field before he allowed it to bleed into Wing’s.

There was a strange smell in the air but he ignored it in favour of answering the jet’s unexpected passion, kissing Wing hard and deep in an attempt to forget where they were. Drift desperately wanted to remember what it was like to feel good and to forget their surroundings for a while. He needed this, needed it almost as badly as Wing. He kissed the happily purring jet who had lust pouring into his Field until Drift felt himself growing damp behind his armour, claspers searching for stimulation.

Armour scraped pleasantly as Wing writhed against him, torso undulating fluidly despite the dead weight of his useless limbs. What pain he could sense in the jet’s Field was the strange pleasure-pain Drift remembered experiencing himself during post-battle frags.

Sounds of transformation reached his audials as lust spiked again through Wing’s Field, pressing deep into his and bringing a moan to his vocaliser that he muffled in the cables of Wing’s neck, nibbling and licking in an effort to bring Wing more pleasure to erase those random jagged surges of physical discomfort shooting through his Field.

Then the scent of an aroused valve hit his chemoreceptors and Drift’s mouth was back on Wing’s, claiming and hungry. He ran a hand down white armour that still had a thick layer of protective enamel despite their lack of grooming tools.

_Well-fed mechs, well-fed nanites._

Wing’s panels were already open, Drift following the silent pleading of Wing’s Field and heading straight for the jet’s valve. Retracting his claws, Drift used a single finger, sliding through a relaxed opening to find Wing’s internal passage wet and welcoming. Another finger followed quickly, Wing keening appreciatively as Drift made good use of the larger and oddly-shaped fingers of his Syngnathi form to bring the jet to overload.

It was beautiful, the sounds Wing made were almost musical and Drift drank them in, drawing it out as long as he could as Wing's spike spilled over his wrist. Before the last crackles of charge had died from Wing’s plating he was begging, suggesting something so completely perverse that Drift couldn’t believe the words were coming from his friend.

“ _Please_ , Drift.” Wing whispered, turning the ruined holes of his optics pleadingly on the Ovaria. “Need your overload too. Need to feel useful.”

Unable to say no to the pitiful look on Wing’s face as he pleaded, Drift braced himself and then did as he was asked, uncovering his valve and reaching for one of Wing’s limp arms, carefully bringing Wing’s hand to his frame. Despite the damage to his main hydraulics and cables, Wing still had some control over the joints in his hands and he used what he had to the fullest as Drift moved the jet’s hand to his valve and carefully slid Wing’s fingers into his passage.

It was impossible to miss the way Wing flinched and shuddered when his fingers first encountered Drift’s claspers, but the jet steeled himself and used his thumb to tease at them as Drift slowly fragged himself with Wing’s hand. It felt odd; different from being fingered in his Cybertronian form. Wing’s fingers felt smaller and more mobile, not able to reach as deep as Drift’s frame craved.

_His forearm might do it, maybe. Have to take some armour off, though._

In an attempt to distract both of them, Drift flexed the pair of fingers still buried in Wing’s valve. The low-burning lust in Wing’s Field flashed up again, joined by a croon in Wing’s vocaliser. Slowly and methodically Drift brought Wing to another overload before giving up on hands as a bad idea, slowly easing Wing’s fingers from his valve as he slid his own soaked digits from Wing’s passage with a teasing flick at node clusters.

“Hang on Wing.” He murmured, deliberately silencing the jet’s worried questions with a kiss. “Gonna change back. Then I’m gonna jerk off while I lick you out. How does that sound?”

Even here, even now, even with everything Wing had endured because of him Drift still couldn't face the thought of sucking Wing's spike.

“Alright.”

It was reluctant acceptance at best so Drift made good on his word, transforming as quickly as possible. The disappointed sound Wing made as Drift’s fingers returned to Cybertronian dimensions was almost amusing.

Drift held Wing’s sticky hand in his own as he wriggled around, getting his helm on a level with the jet’s crotch. Wing’s equipment looked painfully aroused; both his spike and cushioning valve folds were flushed, swollen and slick with arousal. Drift took a selfish moment to admire it as Wing begged. White and gold biolights blazed in invitation as Wing’s Field pulled at his, demanding and irresistible. Drift lowered his helm with a wicked chuckle and then Wing was moaning and twitching under his glossa, the taste of valve lubricant driving all other thoughts out of Drift’s head until he had Wing overloading noisily again, neglected spike making a mess of Drift's chestplates.

“Spike. Drift, your _spike_.” Wing rasped in between keening cries, wriggling his fingers in Drift’s hold. “ _Use me_. Please.”

The powerful surge of lust that shot through Wing’s Field when he made the suggestion was more than enough to convince Drift to do as he asked.

Groaning low in his chest Drift rearranged his frame, moved their joined hands to his aching spike, wrapped their fingers around his length and beginning to stroke as he dove back into lapping at Wing’s valve with more enthusiasm than skill. It wasn’t something he’d done often but he knew enough of the basics to bring Wing to three more shuddering, screaming overloads before overload took him too, the feedback from their deeply enmeshed Fields enough to knock him offline temporarily.

When he crawled lazily back to awareness it was to the sound of Wing’s worried voice and the combined reek of their overloads, the smell almost enough to overpower the weird odour filling their prison.

Ignoring the sticky mess of fluids on their armour and pain that moving caused, Drift forced himself to reverse his position, taking Wing in his arms and soothing the jet as best he could, trailing tapered Cybertronian fingers gently over shuddering flightpanels in an attempt to chase away the faint threads of hysteria he could feel lurking deep in Wing’s Field and keep ground-madness at bay a little longer.

It worked. Possibly a little too well.

Before long the jet was moaning and squirming again, licking and nibbling at whatever part of Drift’s frame he could reach. The Ovaria was pulled helplessly into his friend’s lust, EM sensors blasted with the desperate arousal Wing was projecting.

“Drift, Drift _please_.” Wing panted “Your spike.” He was begging, low pleading getting steadily louder. “Please Drift, I _need_ it.”

“I can’t, Wing.” Drift carefully reminded the delirious jet, “Legs aren’t working, remember?”

“Mouth.” Mumbled against Drift’s neck cabling, glossa darting out to tease. “In my mouth. Want you in me, don’t care where.”

The imagery combined with Wing’s absolutely shameless desperation dragged a low groan from Drift’s vocaliser. Against his better judgement, he found himself yielding to Wing’s desires.

“I’ll have to guide your head a bit. Is that ok?”

Pure lust surged in Wing’s Field and he nodded so vigorously against Drift’s neck that for a moment he worried that the jet would hurt himself.

“Yes, _yes_ Drift. _Please_.”

“Alright, hold on.”

It was a struggle to rearrange their frames without causing more pain. Every time Wing made a noise of pain Drift would stop and soothe him, caressing everything he could reach and trying to project apology and comfort into the maelstrom of desperate arousal that was Wing’s Field. His own pain he ignored, gritting his denta and easily diverting Wing if he let anything leak through.

The strange smell in the air was getting stronger, overpowering the thick ozone reek of their overloads. It was clinging unpleasantly to the back of Drift’s glossa by the time he finally had his pelvic array level with Wing’s mouth. The jet’s vents were running hot and fast, blasting Drift’s exposed equipment with a warm, dry breeze.

“Ready?” Drift was struggling for control, fighting the urge to just plunge into his friend.

Wing nodded again, finding his voice in a torrent of desperate words.

“Ready. Oh Primus, Drift I’m ready; _so_ ready. Please, _please_ let me taste your spike.”

Unable to resist Wing’s begging Drift reached down, taking his painfully hard spike in one hand and gently stroking Wing’s cheek with the other, thumb sliding over the jet’s lower lipplate. A wet glossa darted out to flick and tease as Drift slid his hand under Wing’s helm, supporting the jet and guiding him closer, gritting his denta as he continued his slow, deliberate movements.

The instant the head of his spike skimmed soft lipplates Wing took control, lunging forward with a relived sob to take Drift as deep as he could. A startled yelp burst from Drift’s vocaliser and he shuddered, curling around Wing as the jet slurped hungrily at him, projecting an indescribable pleasure at being _used_ thus by another.

Any lingering worries about their potential audience were banished from Drift’s processors as Wing worked him over, desperate and almost worshipful, pulling Drift’s overload from him with a spiralling cry and an uncontrollable arching of his spine that slid his shaft so far into Wing’s mouth he could feel the flexing of tubing as the jet swallowed his load with a series of muffled grunts, the guidance flaps of his turbines twitching with the effort.

Dazed, Drift tried to pull back only to feel Wing suck harder, Field flaring aggressively as he growled and followed the movement to keep Drift’s spike inside of him.

“Wing?” Drift was worried. Even with the lust pouring from Wing swiftly re-igniting his own desire and that incredibly talented glossa coaxing his shaft to repressurise he couldn’t help the concern sweeping through him. “Wing, what’s going on?

A familiar voice answered from overhead, chilling Drift to the core.

“It would appear that he is ready.” Shockwave observed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Shockwave pumped the cell full of Drift's first-head pheromones. These pheromones don't have much (if any) affect Ovaria who has recently been through a heat cycle and don't affect Incuabtors who currently have a chamber full of eggs.  
> ~Drift has unusually powerful EM sensors, as a result of this he got pulled into Wing's reaction to the first-heat pheromones.


	14. Implantation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wing gets something he thinks he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% happy with this, but I'm not liking anything I do right now so bugger it.

# Chapter Fourteen: Implantation

Quicker than thought, Shockwave stooped and slapped something around Drift’s neck. The familiar crackle through his limbs followed by creeping lethargy told Drift exactly what kind of collar it was.

_Stasis collar._

Wing’s Field flared in response to the sudden flare of desperate terror and helplessness Drift wasn’t fast enough to control. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even _squeak_ as Shockwave grabbed his scapular armour and ripped him away from Wing. Drift clung to the EMF contact and responded to Wing’s confusion and pain by projecting apology and as much reassurance he was could as Shockwave snapped manacles around Drift’s wrists and used them to hang him from the wall.

On the floor-level medberth behind Shockwave Wing was twitching and moaning, incoherent noises interspersed with Drift’s designation, begging him to return.

Drift couldn’t respond to Wing’s desperation.

But Shockwave could.

And did.

The Decepticon ignored all of Drift’s frantic attempts to get his attention, turning and stalking over to the messy berth and the wounded Flightframe sprawled upon it. His Field exploded outwards, cutting Drift off from Wing and drawing a confused sound from his friend. All of Drift’s attempts to claw his way through the glassy wall of Shockwave’s EMF were repelled with insulting ease. Even though Wing was right there he couldn’t reach him, couldn’t feel him at all. _Somehow_ Shockwave was shielding the jet. His Field created an impenetrable barrier around the helpless Knight, isolating him completely.

The collar killed Drift’s shout of warning as Shockwave reached out with one massive hand and pulled the entire medberth away from the wall, giving himself more space to move in, looming over Wing’s prone form. Shockwave crooned low in his chest as massive claws stroked white plating, rearranging the jet’s limbs with obscene care.

Drift’s Spark burned with jealousy as he watched Wing respond to Shockwave, shifting as best he could to accommodate the tender claws brushing over his frame, flaring his armour and sighing with obvious pleasure under the Incubator’s claws. Not even the way Wing was murmuring Drift’s name could ease the bitter envy as he watched, feeling Shockwave’s approval and something _else_ in the wall of his Field that brought deep coding roaring online to join his Spark in protesting the situation.

Drift wasn’t sure which hurt more; that Wing couldn’t tell the difference between him and Shockwave, or that the Incubator was paying attention to an inferior Cybertronian when _he_ was in the room.

Then Shockwave’s Field reached out, twining with his in a very specific way, triggering a process in Drift’s frame and coding that his sluggish processors took a while to register.

 _He’s not going to carry them himself. He’s going to_ use _Wing._

Drift knew it was possible, that an Incubator _could_ choose to let their brood develop within a Cybertronian’s gestation chamber, using their aedeagus to deposit the eggs before their shells developed properly. It hadn’t been done in living memory but it _could_ be done. Shockwave would force Wing to do it.

And Drift couldn’t do anything stop it.

_He’s not even gonna ask; just force my brooding code to fix on Wing, as if it hasn’t already._

Shockwave’s crooning intensified, taking on a resonance that made Drift’s throat tighten with the desire to add his own harmonies to the melody.

### ~V~V~V~

Wing was burning, frame aching with arousal despite the multiple overloads Drift had already given him. He couldn’t remember how many times or how long it had been; without his chronometer. All he knew was that it felt like _forever_ since Drift had brought him to overload and his frame agreed, twitching helplessly beneath skilled claws that drew unimaginable pleasure from his frame.

Now Drift seemed to have gotten control of his Field, keeping it away from Wing and allowing him to lose himself in the physical pleasure without trying to drag him into distressing contact.

 _Oh Primus, thank you Drift,_ thank you _._

He tried to speak, thought he spoke but could barely make out the sound of his own voice over the roaring of his fans and the sheer _need_ shrieking through his frame.

Anticipating that claiming bite he’d witnessed, Wing turned his helm, offering his dented cheekpieces and collar armour for Drift’s denta. No bite came, no claiming and marking but the inferno within his frame erased the disappointment before he could wonder at the lack.

The endless babbled litany of praise and thanks and _yes Drift yes_ spilling from his own vocaliser registered briefly in Wing’s consciousness before a gentle nudge at his valve stole his ability to think. He keened his desperation to the ceiling, willing unresponsive and uncooperative limbs to reach up and _pull_ the larger mech into him.

Drift pressed forwards, pressing his ovipositor into Wing.

It was large, larger than he’d imagined while watching the Ovaria penetrate Shockwave and Wing was grateful for the tapered head and Drift’s slow pace as he eased into the jet’s smaller frame. A small eternity later the widest part was in. Wing keened at the sting which only added fuel to his desire, his callipers strained as the ovipositor eased deeper into his passage, creeping inexorably towards his gestation chamber.

Nodes were scraped raw as Wing overloaded with a violent convulsion, screaming his bliss to whoever was listening.

He didn’t care.

Let them see, let them hear, so long as Wing got to have this feeling of unrelenting fullness moving deeper than any spike had gone, Drift filling him, stuffing and stretching him with a ruthless perfection no toy had ever achieved. Even sections that weren’t supposed to do more than transport nanite-heavy fluid and charge were forced wide to accommodate the width of Drift’s ovipositor as he pressed deeper; Wing’s internal sensors returned a confusion of signals as the firm shaft slithered and surged past them. Even the feeling of his internal parts having to shift aside was greeted with delirious joy, as every tiny movement brought Wing that little bit closer to what he craved.

Wing was sobbing unashamedly by the time the ovipositor reached his gestation chamber, an almost unbearable combination of pleasure and pain surging through him. Drift’s ovipositor latched onto the closed valve of his chamber. Another overload took Wing as something shifted, the head of the organ somehow coaxing his tight inner mechanisms to relax and open to the alien organ that had invaded his frame so satisfyingly.

When his internal valve finally yielded and slid open Wing felt the long shaft begin to pulse within him. He shivered through another overload as he realised what that meant.

 _Eggs. Drift’s… Eggs. Oh Primus,_ yes!

The first few were so small Wing barely noticed as they travelled through the shaft impaling him. His chamber still resisted the alien insertion until Drift’s ovipositor forced his chamber valve still wider so the soft shapes could pass through. He keened and shuddered at the exquisite, unnatural feeling of his chamber filling up in stages as each squashy mass pressed inside.

Those short tentacles he’d seen on both Syngnathi kept up a constant massage of Wing’s external components, spreading lubricant and wriggling over node clusters to bring him to peak after peak. Overloading so often was draining Wing’s energy fast but he welcomed each release. The overloads eased the sting of his abused components, relaxed his valve passage and opened him that a little bit wider so he could fit more of Drift’s brood inside.

 _So many. So full. Yes, more!_ Fill me, _Drift. I want_ more _._

Then something new came down the ovipositor.

It was big, firmer than the other eggs and Wing’s valve struggled to accept the new intrusion. He keened, struggling against a sharp pain as the entrance of his valve stretched further than it ever had before. His entrance stung and throbbed in time with his spark as the first third or so of the egg made it inside before it stopped and refusing to move any deeper.

Drift growled above him, the sound muted and strange through the fog in Wing’s processors. The Syngnath grunted and strained, engine roaring. The too-deep sound of that engine vibrated through Wing as Drift’s shaft rippled almost violently inside him and those tentacles whipped at his nodes until he overloaded with a scream.

The massive egg _finally_ moved, the widest part breaching his valve and pulled relieved groans from both mechs. Its passage through Wing’s internals was marked by a wave of pleasure/pain so intense the Knight wasn’t sure he would survive it, or that he even wanted to. Something about Drift’s voice and engine seemed off as the Syngnath panted and groaned above Wing, something that sent little shocks of alarm though his lagging processors.

Then there was no room for thought, no room for anything but screaming as the monstrous egg butted up against the too-small entrance of his gestation chamber. The head of Drift’s ovipositor convulsed violently, forcing the egg into Wing’s gestation chamber in a single agonising movement as the Syngnath finally overloaded with a strange roar, forcing Wing’s abused chamber to close and seal the massive load of eggs inside him.

When Drift’s overload passed he began to withdraw. A low, animal sound emerged from Wing’s vocaliser as the ovipositor dragged through his hypersensitive valve. It was almost too much for him to endure and still not quite enough to trigger an overload, leaving him teetering on the edge.

When the head of Drift’s ovipositor finally popped free it left Wing’s valve in a massive gush of fluids that ran down his aft to join a massive pool that had collected unnoticed below his frame while Drift filled him. Air moved over his frame as Drift sat back, probably examining the limp and exhausted jet.

Wing could only imagine what he looked like, valve sore and stretched and used, leaking their fluids all over himself and the berth, armour straining over his too-full tank and all splattered with silver from his overloads. Now he was vaguely aware of pain from his chafed spike and the fact that he’d been rubbing against Drift’s abdomen throughout the entire procedure.

_Mmmmm, I wonder what he looks like right now with my overloads on him?_

Charge crawled across Wing’s frame in ripples he could feel but not see, that final overload hanging just out of reach and taunting him. It was agonising to come so close and be denied. Drift had never exactly been refined but he’d still had a rough sort of consideration and Wing could only assume it would carry over to the berth.

Drift would _never_ leave him hanging like this.

“Please Drift, I’m so close.” Wing begged, voice barely more than a crackle of sound after all the screaming he’d done. “One more overload. _Please_. Just one more. I’m so close. It hurts. Drift _please_ it _hurts_.”

A long pause followed his words, sporadic scraping sounds in the background breaking his concentration into a million pieces.

Then a broad, unfamiliar digit made contact with his sore valve, pressing firmly and cruelly on swollen node clusters. The rough treatment was enough to send Wing shrieking into overload. He succumbed willingly even though something deep inside screamed at him that the digit on his valve, Drift’s unnaturally heavy engine, _everything about the entire situation_ was _wrong_.

_That’s… that’s not Drift._

Shock overwhelmed Wing even in the midst of overload. Failsafes forced his processor to shut down before the conflicts piling up in his core processing caused a catastrophic crash.

 _Shockwav_ e…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~There was only one real egg, the rest were Ampulla.
> 
> Relevant Syngnath Headcanons:  
> An Incubator can choose to use a Cybertronian host for the eggs if one is available and the Incubator doesn't want to be restricted by nesting code for the maturation, laying+tending.  
> If the Ovaria has stuck around to take on a parental role for the eggs then they have to be present for this process otherwise their brooding code with remain fixed on the Incubator and cause a lovely pile of problems.  
> If using a Cybertronian host the Incubator has to put Ampulla _as well as_ the eggs into the Cybertronian's gestation chamber to ensure that the eggs develop properly. (Cybertronians aren't equipped to nurture Syngnath eggs properly) Normally an Incubator would give small amounts of Ampulla through several sessions. The Incubator is vulnerable to attack during this process, and without a trustworthy Ovaria to guard him Shockwave decided to get all of it out of the way at once.


	15. Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is Drift's turn to watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weekly update schedule didn't last long, did it? :/  
> As much as I want to get this finished, working on this fic takes an amount of mental fortitude I don't always have *shrug*
> 
> Song for this chapter: [Ibis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzQfCIfXoek) [Cirque Du Soleil]

# Chapter Fifteen: Witness

 

Nothing Drift had endured so far in his short, arduous life had even come close to preparing him for this.

Wing keening beneath Shockwave, impaled on the Incubator’s aedeagus.

Wing begging, pleading, screaming Drift’s name as the process of implantation drove the small Cybertronian to overload after overload. He wasn’t afraid to admit that Wing was beautiful in pleasure, alive and almost free despite his obvious injuries.

It burned Drift, because he wanted to be the one making Wing feel this good, wanted to be participating no matter how wrong the entire situation was. Coding bit at him, demanding that he either help Wing accommodate Shockwave or else stand guard, watch over the pair and ensure their safety at this vulnerable time. Drift couldn’t deny that a deeply buried part of him had wanted this; had wanted Wing to be a part of his world, wanted to see what his spark influence at the very least would contribute to a clutch.

 _But not like this,_ never _like this_.

He watched helplessly as Wing overloaded time and again, the flexible plates around his abdomen flexed and expanded. The entire area slowly distending as Shockwave pumped him full of ampulla to fuel the growth of the sparkling.

Their sparkling.

Drift and Shockwave and now _Wing_. All three of them together in this profaning of something Drift _knew_ should have been willing and joyous cooperation.

_Not like this._

He watched in silence as Wing’s armour continued to warp under the influx of ampulla, fighting the effects of the stasis collar even though he knew it was pointless. The sticky trails of Wing’s overloads dried on Drift’s plating as he bore mute witness to Wing’s continued pleasure and wondered how much more the jet could take before his armour burst at the seams.

Then came the egg.

Drift’s horrified optics tracked the progress of a single enormous egg as it moved slowly through Shockwave’s aedeagus. It almost seemed to resist the process, slowing at the joins between each smooth segment of Shockwave’s organ.

Eventually, inevitably, the egg reached Wing.

It was a struggle. Wing hadn’t been prepared properly, that much was obvious. If this was different, if he had been willing and not drugged into cooperation with whatever Shockwave had added to the atmospheric filters then he would be stretched and relaxed enough to take eggs with comparative ease, even ones an Incubator the size of Shockwave could produce. Instead, Drift watched as the bulge in Shockwave’s aedeagus that was their egg reached Wing’s valve and stopped part-way in, unable to go any further.

Wing wasn’t relaxed enough.

The egg was stuck.

Wing screamed and jerked, trying to thrash as Shockwave strained over him, grunting as fresh lubricant poured from his frame to drench Wing and the berth beneath him. His claspers writhed, frenzied movements that send lubricant flying. They lashed against Wing’s external sensor bundles when Shockwave lowered himself over the jet, growling low in his vocaliser. Shockwave’s engine roared with the effort of forcing his offspring into the tight confines of Wing’s body.

The extra stimulation from Shockwave’s claspers sent Wing into a screaming, keening overload. His frame convulsed, valve almost sucking the egg in as Drift’s horrified optics caught the unmistakable colour of fresh energon tainting the pool of lubricant beneath the pair.

Rage burned through Drift, giving him a fresh burst of energy. He reached with his Field, trying to feel Wing, trying to tell how bad the damage was as Shockwave withdrew from the jet and tucked his aedeagus away without bothering to clean himself of Wing’s valve fluids and energon, even ignoring the silvery trails the jet’s spike had left all over his dark abdominal armour. Try as he might, Drift couldn’t reach Wing’s Field. Between Wing’s damaged optics and the stasis collar he couldn’t communicate with the jet at all. All he could feel was Shockwave. Shockwave’s Field reached out, surrounding him, the harmonics of his Field waking Drift’s brooding code, finishing what he had started earlier and solidifying the attachment to Wing.

 _Egg-holder, egg-carrier, yours/mine/_ ours _, defend, nurture, protect._

Silent tears burned trails down Drift’s cheeks as he watched energon and lubricant run from between Wing’s spread thighs as the jet whimpered and begged for an overload.

Still using Drift’s name.

Every word was like a blaster shot to the Spark.

 _He’s_ never _going to trust me after this._

Shockwave listened impassively as Wing begged in agonised tones, charge crackling over his frame. Then to Drift’s immense surprise he relented, covering Wing’s abused and swollen folds with the flat topside of one long claw and pressing down hard enough to shift the jet’s frame along the ground.

Wing realised it then.

It was all over his face as the overload hit.

Wing knew who it was, who had taken him and filled him and made him a carrier of Syngnathi spawn. Drift saw the flash of recognition and the overwhelming horror that replaced it, Wing’s expression made all the more horrendous by the scab-crusted wounds of his optics.

Then all emotion vanished from Wing’s features as unconsciousness took him, the force of his overload knocking the jet offline.

Lying sprawled on the berth like that he looked serene, almost peaceful.

_GET AWAY FROM HIM._

Drift lashed out with his Field, silently battering Shockwave, slicing into the Incubator’s post-implantation calm with the same vengeful savagery he’d once turned on Council flunkies.

It didn’t seem to have any effect, Shockwave simply shrugged off his assault and left, staggering slightly on unsteady legs.

He left Drift and Wing as they were, not even glancing back at Drift’s silent rage as the door closed behind him.

Roaring filled Drift’s audials, air moved over his frame. Fresh, clean atmosphere filling the room, slowly scrubbing away the strange musky stench that seemed to coat every chemoreceptor he possessed.

A familiar sweet, dusty smell registered too late for Drift to seal his vents.

The anaesthetic crept into his systems and Drift succumbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now everything starts going to hell at near-light speeds.


	16. Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still captive, they argue and Drift dreams.

# Sixteen : Later

 

This time Drift woke first, taking stock and pulling a face at the lingering taste of anaesthetic on his glossa. Apart from the scrunching of faceplates he lay still, trying to figure out what had changed this time.

He had been taken down from the wall; that much was obvious. Sensors were sluggish but he could the familiar padding of his medberth in Shockwave’s cell beneath his backplates. His frame was stiff. When Drift tried to push himself up to his elbows every single joint and hydraulic he posessed protested as if he hadn’t moved in a long, long time.

_Ow, what the frag?_

None of that mattered when Wing screamed.

 

### ~V~V~V~

 

Nauseatingly vivid nightmares gave way to the familiar darkness of ruined optics and Wing knew he was awake.

Knew he was awake, and screamed.

He didn’t need to ping his recent memory to know what had happened; every single second of his violation by Shockwave was branded into his very Spark with a searing combination of yearning and disgust. His frame felt wrong, heavy and ground-bound. The _thing_ growing within him shifted in response to his terror and not even the tattered shreds of active gestational coding could keep Wing from yearning to tear it from his abdomen.

Somewhere over the agonised sounds coming from his vocaliser he could hear Drift and then the Ovaria’s Field overwhelmed his. Gently, inexorably Drift forced him into a fragile state of calm, one imposed from outside that buckled under the pressure of the hysteria overtaking Wing.

Then arms were around him, the familiar-unfamiliar shape of Drift’s Syngnath form against his as he gathered Wing in his arms and held him close, exposing the jet’s flightpanels to the air of their cell even as he pressed Wing’s face into his neck.

Instinctively, Wing bit.

Cables _crunched_ satisfyingly beneath his denta and fresh energon flooded Wing’s mouth with the taste of victory even as his distended, armour-less abdomen jammed against Drift’s unyielding armour. Drift’s arms tightened around him, warm frame going rigid against Wing as shock and pain broke through the calm Drift was projecting, jolting Wing back into rational thought. He released his bite on Drift’s neck cables as though burned, feeling wet warmth splatter and run down his faceplates as Drift shivered around him, engine growling in that way it did when he was suppressing pain. Warnings about the pressure on his gestation chamber popped up to be ignored for more pressing concerns.

“Drift, I…” Wing trailed off, unable to find words for the apology he knew Drift deserved.

“It’s ok.” Drift’s voice was rough with pain, his altered vocaliser making the old Decepticon cadences into something almost melodic. “I should have expected something like that.”

There was no condemnation in Drift’s voice or his Field where it surrounded Wing, cradling him in safety and an emotion that could only be love. Drift’s EMF created a blessed sanctuary unlike anything Wing had ever experienced and was the absolute last thing he had ever expected to find in this place. It was too much. He broke down, howling his anguish and despair into Drift’s plating as the Ovaria held him and murmured low words that reached Wing’s audials despite the volume of his tearing sobs.

“I’m sorry, Wing. This is all my fault.” Drift’s voice was thick with guilt that didn’t make it into the warm cocoon of his Field. Strong, careful hands shifted Wing into a more comfortable position, easing the pressure on his gestation chamber. “I should have guessed he’d do this and tried to get us out sooner. I’m so sorry.”

“You… You should have left me to die in that desert.” The Ovaria’s voice cracked and shook bit he continued to speak. “Then this _never_ would have happened; I wouldn’t have talked you into leaving and then Shockwave wouldn’t have been able to hurt you like this.”

The raw, sincere words burned Wing. Somehow he forced his almost-stripped vocaliser to produce sounds that were almost words.

“It’s not your fault, Drift.”

“And it’s not your fault either so don’t you go and start blaming yourself.” Drift snarled, his old Decepticon accent stronger than ever. “Don’t you fragging _dare_.”

“So don’t blame _yourself_ , either.” Wing snapped back, armour bristling aggressively.

This reappearance of Wing’s old spirit seemed to give Drift hope. He hugged the jet closer, projecting determination.

“I’m sorry. We’ll get out of here. I _promise_.”

Wing didn’t reply, trying to burrow into Drift’s plating and disappear. They stayed curled together until normal recharge claimed them.

 

### ~V~V~V~

 

Sometimes when the waking world was intolerable, Drift’s processor would reward him with a good memory flux during recharge.

It could also be his twisted subconscious punishing him for the wrongs he’d done by reminding him of what he’d lost; Drift wasn’t sure which was the case. Someone smarter than him would probably be able to figure the answer out.

Drift just took the dreams as they came, not daring to question the rare gift of peace, no matter how fleeting it was.

On the streets it had been dim sparkling memories of his creators. The feel of a warm, strong frame curled around him in the nest. The harmonies of fields and vocalisers as they hummed –no, _sang_ \- to him.

Love, safety, warmth, care.

They had been his and then they had been taken away.

Those first dim memories had been joined later by clearer ones of Gasket and the fragile trust and support of the little almost-family he’d created out of a group of guttermechs. He hadn’t been able to risk getting too close to them for fear of having his secret exposed and having the entire lot of them put under the Inquisitor’s blades.

Still, it had been nice.

Tonight, for the first time, he dreamed of Wing.

Drift knew that he was dreaming but was still helpless to control what he saw.

It felt wrong to dream of Wing whole and healthy and laughing when the mech himself lay within arms’ reach, abdomen swelling abnormally with Drift’s offspring. He didn’t know for sure how many Shockwave had deposited within Wing’s Cybertronian gestation chamber, but the grotesque swelling seemed much too large for one alone.

Still, in Drift’s dreams Wing danced and smiled and sang, full of life and joy.

This time the Ovaria was certain it was a punishment for failing to keep Wing safe from his own past. All the life and light and joy that had been ripped from the jet was shown to Drift again, to remind him that it was his fault that Wing suffered like this.

Drift woke keening, optical fluid making warm trails down his cheekplates. Wing was out cold, recharging so deeply that Drift’s noise hadn’t woken him. When he tried to shift away, afraid of contaminating Wing with his touch, the jet just whined low in his vocaliser and tried to press his mangled and bloated frame closer. When the grounder wrapped his arms around Wing he quieted, pressing his faceplates against Drift’s thoracic armour and trying to nuzzle deeper into the plating over his Spark. Drift kept his optics offline, not wanting to see what had become of his friend.

“ _I’m sorry, Wing. I’m so sorry_.” Drift mouthed the words silently into the darkness of his offline optics as tears continued to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave wanted to monitor Wing closely, so he's kept them both offline for the majority of the gestation.


	17. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes insanity is kinder than reality.  
> Drift discovers a fatal gap in Wing's knowledge of how Synagnathi function.

# Seventeen : Revelations

 

Every time Wing woke it was the same.

Thrashing and screaming his vocaliser hoarse, biting any part of Drift’s frame that got too close too close to his mouth. So much terror poured from the jet that Drift couldn’t bring himself to resent the violence or frequency of Wing’s awakenings even though he was exhausted from lack of recharge. Every time, after Wing threw off the lingering grip of his nightmares he’d collapse against Drift and cry until he was exhausted. When Wing ran out of tears they would talk for a while, or fuel if cubes had been delivered while they recharged. Drift hadn’t seen Myein or Shockwave since Wing had been implanted. For all he knew, their cubes were being delivered remotely.

 _Shockwave probably doesn’t trust her enough for this, or doesn’t want to kill her by sending her in here. Heh, I’d happily slaughter_ both _of them right now._

Ironically, Drift was now glad that Myein had taken Wing’s sight. The jet’s abdominal armour bulged obscenely, warping under the relentless pressure from his gestation chamber. It was incredibly disturbing to see, given that Drift somehow _knew_ there was only one egg in there. Wing’s armour had unlocked and released all connection points soon after they had woken up, but given the situation Drift hadn’t suggested removing it. Instead he gently rubbed Wing whenever his armour pinched his protoform, crooning every snatch of song he could remember from Crystal City and making up his own wandering melodies when he got tired of repeating himself.

Simply continuing without giving in to fear was harder than anything Drift had ever done. Singing kept the fear at bay. For a little while, at least.

Singing wasn’t as good as talking but Wing was recharging a lot, the unnatural demands on his frame and the strain of their long captivity beginning to take their toll.

Drift could feel it beginning to get to him during the seemingly endless hours Wing spent in recharge, leaving him alone with his thoughts. It was easier to let instinct take over, singing softly to the sleeping jet and the living egg within him, carefully tending Wing and adjusting his frame so he was as comfortable as possible.

Sometimes it was a struggle for Drift to find words again when Wing woke and needed comfort, but somehow he managed it, answering the Knight’s worried questions as comfortingly as he could whenever Wing noticed his lack of speech. Drift held on as best he could, hoarding his rational thought; saving it for when Wing was awake, for when it was needed most.

In the end, Drift was glad he did.

He didn’t even notice Wing cycle silently up from recharge; too engrossed in carefully grooming white flightpanels with gentle claws.

A strange flat quality to Wing’s Field was the first warning Drift had that something was wrong. It was as if Wing was awake but deliberately not thinking or feeling. He didn’t respond when Drift called his name, didn’t respond when turned roughly to his back so Drift could see the blank expression on haggard faceplates. Worried, Drift retracted his claws and patted Wing’s cheeks, trying to get a response.

Then Wing began to withdraw.

Drift knew this, had seen it before on the streets when reality became too much for some and they sought refuge in madness. The Knight’s Field receded in a sickeningly familiar way, all trace of expression vanishing as his entire face went slack, everything that was _Wing_ turned inwards.

 _Wing is_ leaving _._

Drift was going to be _alone_.

He panicked.

A high, desperate keen tore its way from his throat and he slapped Wing hard across the face once, twice and again as pure terror overpowered the hardcoded instinct not to harm the mech hosting his young.

“Don’t you dare, Wing. Don’t you _dare_ leave now.” Drift’s voice cracked as he shook the unresponsive jet, reaching with his Field until he swore he could actually feel Wing’s Spark. “Not _now_ , not after everything we’ve been through.”

No response. The sense of Wing’s awareness continued to fade.

“ _WING!_ ” Drift’s anguished scream finally halted the jet’s retreat into madness. “Wing, _don’t go_. Please, you _can’t_. Not _now_ , not after…”

The faintest sense of confusion from the Knight stopped Drift dead.

“Pit take me, you really don’t know, do you?” Drift wondered aloud, almost hysterical as the pieces fell slowly into place. “Oh, of _course_ you wouldn’t know.”

A wild, ugly laugh burst from Drift, one that threatened to become tearing sobs.

“It’s different for you Cybertronians, isn’t it?” He asked rhetorically. “For us, Kin is _everything_. Kin comes first, _always_.” Now Drift _was_ crying, words falling alongside tears. “By refusing Shockwave and choosing _you_ over _him_ I signed my own death warrant. There is _no_ going back for me. I’ve committed the ultimate crime; I chose one of _you_ over my Kin, Wing.”

For the first time since regaining control of himself after his heat Drift deliberately relaxed control over his Field, finding vicious satisfaction in the way Wing actually _flinched_ when Syngnathi harmonics full of rage, pain and unspeakable guilt washed over him. Drift’s own fear followed everything else. All the fear he had been successfully suppressing beneath brooding protocols now overwhelmed them both.

“So don’t you DARE take the cowards way out.” Drift snarled, “Don’t you _dare_. You fragging well stay with me, do you hear?” He shook the unresponsive jet, desperate for a reaction. “You stay with me, because I _can’t_ leave you. I _won’t_. We’re getting out of here, I promise. Answer me, _dammit_. WING!”

With that shout of his designation finally, _finally_ the Knight’s limp form regained some sense of life, the Knight’s intellect slowly returning from wherever it had been going.

“It’s hard, Drift.” Wing’s small, broken voice barely reached Drift’s audials. “It’s so _hard_.”

“I know, Wing.” Drift sighed, his terror-fuelled rage vanishing like smoke now that Wing wasn’t leaving. He pulled his friend close and stroked limp flightpanels, offering what small comfort he could as Wing started to sob. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to go.  
> Time to start sharpening your pitchforks ^.^;


	18. Butting Heads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wing tries to convince Drift to do the impossible.  
> Drift vows to do something equally unlikely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs for this chapter: [ [Tessa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuFT1Mp0zJg) ] by Steve Jablonsky, [ [Starscream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTlNh8b5d_k) ] by Meta.
> 
> Brace yourself for some serious feels whiplash in this one.

# Eighteen : Butting Heads

 

Wing awoke to the eternal darkness of his ruined optics with one thought clear in his mind.

_I can’t do this anymore._

He’d had enough; enough of this room and constant pain, the paralysis and wing-clipped blindness, had _more_ than enough of this functioning as he waited for his frame to eject Shockwave’s demonic spawn so he could escape with Drift. His own carrying protocols had never activated properly, the best he could do was constantly remind himself that the _thing_ in his body was in no way to blame for how it had come to be there.

 _No more. I can’t. Please,_ no more _._

Drift was recharging, his Field relatively unguarded and filled with the Syngnathi resonance Wing could barely tolerate. It made him want to claw his plating off even as it soothed the thing inside him so he could rest more comfortably without it shifting around his gestation chamber. Drift’s arms were wrapped around him, the warmth of his vents welcomed to counteract the chill crawling through his lines. He exhaled with a gusty sigh, feeling Shockwave’s spawn twitch in reaction to his unguarded emotions.

_I’m so tired. I can’t do this anymore._

With these thoughts cycling through his processors Wing focused on the feeling of the frame beside him, committing every single scrap of sensory data to Spark as best he could through the inevitable file corruption caused by his constant physical pain. Drift mumbled something in recharge, fingers twitching in aborted petting motions against Wing’s plating. Inhaling deeply, Wing filtered out everything except the speedster’s scent and added that to what he was attempting to record.

_You’ve been a better friend than I ever expected, better than I deserved. I hope that one day you can forgive me for what I ask of you._

“Wing?” Drift’s recharge-roughened voice still sang with the tonal qualities of his true nature as his Field went almost tacky with a combination of worry and the desire to soothe. “What d’you mean? What’re you askn me?”

Not _the way I wanted to start this conversation, but…_

“Drift, I…” Wing started, trailing off as he realised that he still didn’t know how to phrase this.

“What is it?” Drift asked, more alert now. Careful hands smoothing over Wing’s crippled and distorted frame. “What was it you want to ask me?”

Steeling himself, Wing turned his helm so Drift would be looking into the pits where his optics had been and _pleaded_ with the Ovaria.

“I want you to do something for me Drift.” Wing’s voice cracked. “ _Please_.”

“Wing?” There was suspicion as well as concern now.

“Drift; I want you to kill me.”

Shock ripped through Drift’s Field; shock and denial and unambiguous _refusal_ to carry out his request. Wing’s vents hitched and his voice crackled with static as he forced himself onwards before Drift could interrupt.

“ _Please_ Drift. I’m so tired, this… _thing_ is killing me slowly and _I_ _can’t take it anymore_.” Memories from the founding of New Crystal City cascaded through Wing’s processor in a chilling torrent. “And the ground-madness… Drift, you _can’t_ keep it away forever and I _won’t do that to you._ I don’t want you to watch me go like _that_. Mercy, _please_ Drift. I’m begging you; kill me. _Give me mercy_.”

Drift’s Field was raw with agony where it flowed against his, Drift’s engine whining with stress.

“I _can’t,_ Wing.” He whispered. “Please, I _can’t_.”

Something nauseating and implacable rolled through the Ovaria’s Field, something Wing recognised as a base-coding reaction to what he suggested.

_Then maybe…_

“If you can’t do that then wait until I’m gone, take the Greatsword and _go_.” Wing kept his voice low, even though he knew their captors’ surveillance systems would likely still be able to pick him up. “This thing is going to kill me; I know it is. Hardline with me, I can show you where the Sword is in relation to us. I want you to escape however and whenever you can. Leave me here and _go_. Take the Sword back to its home.”

He could tell from Drift’s Field that even these words weren’t having any effect. The scarred protoflesh around his optic-holes burned and Wing felt hot tears gather along creases in the puckered metal.

“ _Please_ Drift; we both know I’m not going to make it out of here alive. If you won’t take the Sword to its home then carry it with you. Find others of your kind and _live_.” Tears flowed freely now as Wing extended his Field, refusing to let the harsh buzz of Drift’s alien resonance deter him from this. “You don’t have to tell them about this, about here. I want you to drive and be _free_ , have dozens of growly little sparklings and tell them about this annoying Knight you met who kicked your aft every day until the rust finally fell out of your audials.”

The teasing fell flat.

Out of words and out of ideas, Wing waited for Drift to respond.

“I _can’t_.” Drift sounded like he was in agony. “I can’t _do_ that, Wing.”

“Why not?” Wing demanded, silently blessing the stubbornness that had always been one of his failings as a Knight. “And don’t you _dare_ give me that coding scrap. You’re a thinking being, Drift; _not_ a mechanimal to be driven by base instinct. If you even were _half_ as stubborn as I think you are you could rationalise a way around it if you really wanted to!”

The pained, bitter sound that Drift made couldn’t be called a laugh.

“Ok, if we put aside the fact that you’re _completely slagging wrong_ about all that; Wing, do you _honestly_ think I could go home and face your friends after this? _Without_ you? After my part in all of this?” The Ovaria sounded like he was on the verge of hysteria. “I _couldn’t_ , and you slagging well know it.” He barrelled on when Wing tried to interrupt. “And _don’t_ tell me to find a colony or Clan, either. That’s out of the question and you know damn well why.”

“But… they don’t need to know unless you tell them.” Wing was puzzled. “Or, if you explained the situation they’d understand why. I’m sure they would.”

“I couldn’t lie.” Drift’s voice and Field were thick with exhaustion and despair. “Any decent Clan would insist on having me sparkmerge with an experienced Elder before revealing themselves properly. Yes Wing, sparkmerge even before hardline. It’s to prevent infiltration or at least slow the progress of anyone who’s detected us. There’ve been… incidents.”

This made sense to Wing. Far too much sense.

Drift heaved a sigh. “So the instant I merge with an Elder they’ll see what I’ve done _and_ why, but what they do about it would depend on the individual. I’m _not_ going to leave you on the off-chance I manage to find a flexible Clan with forgiving Elders to take me in. I _was_ kinda notorious, you know.”

 _You can’t out-stubborn me, my friend. I_ will _talk you into this and I have the rest of my life to do it._

“With the number of Cybertronians you’ve killed and the other skills you have, I can’t see why they’d pass you up.” Changing tactics, Wing tried to change the subject and pull Drift out of the deep despair sucking at him. “Get a repaint and finish the rebuild we started, scan a new altmode, swap your blasters for swords and the average mech wouldn’t know you from another frontline fighter, especially with the new harmonics to your old designation.”

Drift snorted at that, shifting Wing to lie more comfortably against his frame.

“You’re never going to stop trying to pretty me up like some fancy-plates noble, are you?” He asked rhetorically, going along with Wing’s attempt to lighten his mood although it was clear he wasn’t feeling it.

“Never.” Wing smiled into his eternal darkness as Drift sighed.

“When we get out of here, remind me to put warning labels on your back where you can’t peel them off.” Drift said, the teasing harmonics sounding forced.

His wording threw Wing’s thoughts back to their original subject of discussion.

“When _we_ … Drift, I-”

 

### ~V~V~V~

 

Drift wasn’t going to give Wing a chance to finish that sentence.

“Shut _up_ , Wing. I’ll get you out. I promised, didn’t I?” He said, placing a finger over Wing’s lipplates to keep the Knight quiet while he continued. “After the sparkling comes or you birth the egg, whichever way it happens. Even if we have to leave Shockwave’s pitspawn here while we make a run for it.” Drift said, his brooding code protesting at the thought of abandoning new life that he _should_ be protecting.

 _Shockwave is insane and_ neither of us _chose this_.

Wing smiled weakly at him, fingers tightening their loose hold on his hand.

“It’s _your_ sparkling too, Drift.” The jet said. There was absolute certainty in the ragged brush of his Field. “Nothing that has a part of _you_ in it can be entirely bad. If _we_ could…”

Wing trailed off, either losing his train of thought or searching for the right words and not finding any. Even though he was thoroughly embarrassed in a way he never had been before, Drift couldn’t look away from the absolutely sincerity on Wing’s haggard face.

“”I’m sure that both of us together would be more than enough to overcome any influence Shockwave has had.” Wing whispered eventually.

There was nothing he could say to that. Drift tightened his arms around Wing, Field wrapping around the jet and expressing everything he couldn’t find words for. They lay together in emotionally charged silence for what felt like hours, until Drift decided it was time to change the subject.

[Offscreen: Mystère is on monitor duty, pretending to dry-heave at this show of sentiment]

“Hey Wing, what’s that song from home again?”

Wing gave him a puzzled look, shifting uncomfortably. Scar tissue reflected the light as he tilted his helm at Drift, shiny and fresh-looking because their prison kept them from doing anything that would put normal wear on their dermal metal and enamel.

_His optic sockets are healing nicely._

“I don’t know any songs from where you’re from, Drift.” Wing’s voice was soft and his Field full of gentle regret.

Fighting the urge to facepalm and possibly startle Wing with the sudden movement, Drift growled and nuzzled Wing instead.

“I meant the City, silly jet.” Drift said, forcing his voice to a light, teasing tone that he didn’t really feel. “You know, that one that goes;” He hummed a deliberately off-key snatch of melody.

Instead of cheering Wing up this seemed to stun him.

“What?” Drift projected his confusion for Wing to feel. Fields had taken the place of facial expressions and the set of armour for them. “Was that the wrong song?”

Wing shook his helm, squeezing Drift’s fingers.

“No, it was the right one.” He said softly, Field filled with a swirling tangle of emotions Drift couldn’t hope to make sense of. “It’s just… you’ve never called the City _home_ before.”

Embarrassment and more than a little shame surged through Drift, roughening his Field and making his horns flush with heat. He fidgeted with Wing’s fingers, trying not to look at the way one side of Wing’s mouth twitched up in a small smile.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Wing smile.

“I, ah, it’s been home to me for a long time.” Drift admitted finally. “It just took me a while to realise it.”

“And even longer to admit it.” Wing teased, his voice stronger than it had been in weeks. “It’s ok Drift, I’ll forgive you this time.”

Drift was so distracted by the slow chuckle that followed Wing’s words he forgot that he should possibly be annoyed. The light quality of Wing’s Field was too rare now for him to risk ruining it. Instead he lowered his helm, pressed his audial to Wing’s chestplates and tried to memorise the sound, basking in the moment and fighting back unexpected tears. The laughter trailed off slowly but Drift stayed where he was, a slow realisation finally solidifying into place in his processor. 

 _Someone else is always pulling me out of a hole_ , Drift thought as he rested his helm on Wing’s chestplates.

 _First Gasket, then Ratchet and Shockwave and now you_. _It’s time for me to start paying it back_.

Unnameable emotions rose to choke Drift and he quietly lost the battle against the fluid pooling in his optics. Tears painted wet trails down his cheeks as the Ovaria swore a silent oath, one he was determined to keep so long as a single iota of life remained in his frame.

 _It’s my turn to save you now. Wing; I **swear** I’ll get you out of here_.

Drift didn’t realise he'd spoken aloud until Wing answered him in a voice that was rough with emotion.

“If anyone can, it’s you, Drift.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These guys are so bloody unstable now I'm not evem sure they'd survive a rescue attempt.


	19. Ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life begets death as death begets life, for Cybertronian and Syngnath alike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as polished as I would like but Christmas Eve seemed like a good day to finally bring this fic to a close.

# Chapter Nineteen: Nadir

 

It wasn’t long before Drift wished that Shockwave would have mercy and knock them out for the rest of Wing’s carrying. There obviously wasn’t very long left, but even now Wing couldn’t recharge comfortably or for long, wriggling around as the sparkling growing inside him pressed relentlessly against his internals.

Despite Wing’s infectious joy when they had woken to find the feeding tubes gone, refuelling was now an ordeal that both mechs dreaded. The cubes were still delivered regularly and each time they appeared Drift’s Spark shrank inside him.

It was obvious from the obscenely misshapen state of Wing’s abdomen that his fuel tanks were being compressed and pushed out of place by the growing sparkling. As much as Wing craved the energy he simply couldn’t ingest more than a few mouthfuls at a time. Even the slow sips Drift coaxed into him threatened to come back up as the sparkling squirmed and jostled the jet’s already-damaged internals.

It took hours now to get a standard-sized cube into Wing; a cube he used to finish in minutes. Drift could _feel_ the discomfort that fuelling caused Wing, it made him feel like the worst kind of slagger as he alternately coaxed and bullied his friend through agonizingly slow refuelling, but he had no other choice. He knew all too well that neither of them could afford to be any weaker if they were to have any hope of escape.

_It can’t be much longer now, can it?_

By now Wing’s flightpanels twitched constantly, waking and sleeping, ground-madness eating steadily away at the edges of his sanity. Drift would wake with Wing’s Field entwined with his, shivering with second-hand sky hunger that translated into mounting claustrophobia and a burning need to drive that overrode everything else.

_Primus, Unicron,_ anybody _. Please just let this end…_

 

### ~V~V~V~

 

Spasms deep within his frame woke Wing some time while Drift was recharging.

Fresh ripples of something that he would have called pain before this experience and now only bothered him because it was something new grabbing at him over the constant thrum of pain in his consciousness. Not wanting to wake Drift, he stayed silent and still, counting the pulses of his accelerating Spark as he realised what this new sensation meant.

_It’s starting._

Some dim piece of his reasonable mind sounded caution through the almost feverish anticipation that gripped him, warning of transformation trial-runs and false pains that would not necessarily mean the sparklet was ready to emerge.

_Patience_.

Time crawled. The pains gradually became sharper, more rhythmic.

Mechanisms caught and ground to a halt as his frame fought to begin a transformation sequence not even T-Cog locks could stop. It was processor-bending agony and all he could do was endure, keep the discomfort from his Field and try not to scream. Drift would need to be as rested as possible if he was to get them out of there. He thought of the sky, clinging to the memory of flight as he bit his lip until it bled.

_If I want to fly again I_ must not scream _._

Denied any form of expression the pain simply pooled within him, growing stronger with ever surge of failed transformation. Vocaliser clicking and popping under the strain Wing thought he was going to give in, holding on to silence by the enamel of his fingertips as each wave of failed transformation pulsed outwards from his gestation chamber to consume him.

By the time the fourth or fifth storm of pain passed Wing was exhausted. He panted, vents wide but not running hot enough for his fans to activate. Drift twitched against him, the Ovaria going from recharge to consciousness in a split second, moving to see to Wing’s comfort as soon as he booted up.

“I can’t believe this thing is still growing.” Drift murmured while gently rearranging Wing to lie on his side, checking warped white armour to make sure it wasn’t pinching anything. His Field wrapped around Wing like a shield, a second layer of armour, a haven of comfort and protection in a hellish universe. “This is way above your frameclass. I can’t _believe_ Shockwave is ok with leaving you like this.”

 “I know I don’t know much about carrying, but all this feels very wrong to me.” Wing admitted, shying away from what he really wanted to ask, at least for now. “It’s not moving the way it should and I don’t think I’m going to be able to transform by the time it’s ready to **emerge**.”

Blinded as he was, Wing could still _feel_ the way Drift tilted his helm and cycled his optics in confusion.

“Um, eggs don’t **emerge** , Wing.” The Ovaria said carefully. “With Incubators this kind of channel-thing is supposed to form, taking the shortest path from the gestation/maturation chamber to the outside, so it comes out through the front.” He shrugged, armour scraping. “I think they sorta just open their chestplates and let gravity help pull the eggs free once the transformation sequence finishes. It’s _laying_ , not **emergence**.”

Wing’s entire frame burned with the desire to bury his face in his hands. Since he couldn’t do that he settled for pressing his faceplates into the smooth, warm expanse of Drift’s chest. He gritted his denta until the urge to keen passed.

“It’s somewhat similar for us,” Wing forced the words out. “But the sparkling _climbs_ out, the transformation sequence for **emerging** creates a safe passage through our internals that won’t damage us _or_ the sparklet.”

“Oh.” Drift sounded like Wing had just thrown Dai Atlas at him. “So…”

Another painful spasm seized Wing, strong enough to force a groan from him.

The _thing_ inside him was restless, excited by imminent freedom and even more impatient than Wing to reach it. Pressure came and went as it flexed against his internals, warping the springy material of his gestation chamber. These actions from Shockwave’s spawn prompted Wing’s frame to transform for emergence even as it stalled the entire process by trying to move in the wrong direction.

“ _So_ it’s happening. Now.” Wing forced the words out, ignoring the scaulding hot liquid gathering in his optical sockets. “My frame is trying to transform for emergence but the sparkling is trying to come out _your_ way.” Another shove from inside his gut interrupted Wing. He felt something give inside him, crumpling as it was forced out of the way. “The only way out it has is the same way it got in. But it’s… _it’s too big_ , Drift. It’s never going to fit.” The Knight’s voice cracked, spiralling upwards into hysteria as he finished speaking .

Drift snarled, Field firming around Wing in a defensive shell.

“So where the slag is Shockwave?” Drift’s voice was pure rage, the emotion flooding through his Field and providing a welcome antidote to the excruciating grinding of Wing’s internals. “He should be doing _something_ if he wants us to come out of this alive.”

Wing almost smiled, trying to imagine what Drift could possibly do to Shockwave in his state. The monster’s spawn squirmed as Wing shook his helm, feeling his cheekpieces scrape against Drift’s chestplates as he opened his mouth to speak.

Something tore inside him and Wing felt a gush of something warm leave his lips instead.

 

### ~V~V~V~

 

Something splashed Drift’s chestplates.

He looked down to see Wing’s haggard faceplates contorted in pain and confusion, a dribble of fresh energon trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Fresh energon that matched the stuff down Drift’s chest.

“Wing?”

The Knight shook his helm, coughed once and then spewed a great torrent of energon over both of them. His Field spiked sharply with pain and terror, clawing desperately at Drift since his fingers no longer worked.

_Something is very,_ very _wrong._

Then Wing seized, entire frame locking up. His Field flared one final agonized time and then vanished beyond even Drift’s ability to sense.

Someone was shouting, screaming Wing’s designation over and over while the white jet tipped slowly over onto his back, landing on the eerily still flightpanels with a dull thump.

Sickening crunching and tearing sounds sounded too loud in a room that was silent except for the whine of Drift’s straining systems.

_No… this can’t be happening. It_ can’t _be real. Wing…_

Drift felt like he was in a dream, as if the air around him had been replaced with wet sand. He reached out towards Wing, arm moving slowly as he tried every mental trick he knew to break a bad drug trip or wake himself from a nightmare.

None of them worked, so he tried again.

And again.

White armour cooled quickly beneath his shaking fingers. Drift snatched his hand back, still trying to wake himself up.

Movement from within Wing’s frame shifted the warped armour plating of his torso. As the wet sounds of tearing metal got steadily louder it tipped slowly sideways, eventually falling to the berth. In a state of shock, Drift watched as the Knight’s grossly distended abdominal protoform bulged and rippled under the assault from within.

Something flickered across Wing’s face, his fingers twitched.

Then he screamed in agony.

It was a sound Drift had never heard made by another living creature.

He was reaching for Wing when the Knight’s abdomen burst outwards. Ruptured lines sprayed the room, coating everything in it with a combination of energon, hydraulic fluids and thickening coolant.

Drift flinched as the spray coated his optics, wiping frantically at them to clear the lenses. Wing fell silent

“Wing?” He croaked, hoping against hope as his optical feed reset and cleared.

_No…_

The jet was lying slack and lifeless in a swiftly growing pool of gore, faceplates empty of expression, torso almost entirely destroyed.

As Drift watched something rose dripping from the ruin that had been a mech, unfolding and stretching cramped limbs. It turned a small face towards Drift, fixing the shocked Ovaria with a bright orange stare.

That gangly, oddly-jointed frame roused no protective instincts within Drift, his Field flinched away from the strangely flat one that probed at his.

As if that was some kind of cue, the _thing_ that had emerged from Wing uncoiled in a rush. It leaped from the bloody ruin of the Knight’s frame and straight for Drift’s throat.

A lifetime of sharply-honed instinct demanded he defend himself and Drift obeyed, bringing a hand up to ward off the attack. The thing hit his hand and latched on with tiny claws. Hooking them into armour it scrambled around, scurrying up the Ovaria’s arm, dodging behind a chipped pauldron and out of sight before Drift could grab it. Drift was moving too slowly, still in shock, reluctant to attempt escape without Wing.

Claws scrabbled at his back and Drift hunched instinctively, bringing the plates of his armour together to protect the vulnerable cabling at the back of his neck. As he bent down his optics landed on Wing’s wrecked and bleeding form.

Suddenly the thought of living in a universe where his own offspring had done _that_ was too much

_No matter how it happens it’s all the same in the end._

Deliberately, Drift relaxed and allowed the creature –the _thing_ he and Shockwave had spawned- access to his major neural and arterial lines. It took full advantage, clumsily disabling him before it began to feed. Now paralysed, Drift slumped forward. He kept his optics on Wing’s ruined faceplate as the world began to dim around him.

_Maybe I’ll get to apologise before I’m stuffed into the Pit?_

Wing’s faceplates trembled, dark fingers twitched in a pool of thickening energon.

The world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's where Insecticons came from! (kidding ^.^;)
> 
> I told you guys it wasn't going to have a happy ending.
> 
> The thing that killed Drift and Wing wasn't wholly Syngnath or Cybertronian. Shockwave was continuing the Institute's experiments and... the results weren't pretty. Successful, but not pretty. Think a cybernetic version of the experiment room from Alien Resurrection for the level of visceral horror Drift got.


End file.
